Back to School Doesn't Have to Mean Back to Tests

Cross posted at The Innovative Educator Blog and Cooperative Catalyst.

Social media has become a mobilizing force in bringing together students, educators, and parents who are frustrated with the data-driven, standardized, one-size-fits all learning taking place in publicly funded schools today. Many of these groups have popped up with members joining and uniting against a system designed to reduce children to nothing more than standardized, easily measurable data to appear on a future chart that can bolster the ratings and egos of policy makers and business leaders. Despite the fact that many educational leaders, educators, parents, and students know this is wrong, parents like Gretchen Herrera are being forced to engage in practices that hurt children with threats of school closures and students being left behind or kicked out for failure to comply.

One of the biggest movements gaining momentum is opting out of state testing, with social media sites being created in the form of Facebook groups, Facebook pages, and Yahoo groups, which are connecting parents, educators, and students who are frustrated with forced government schooling policies. In the past there was little information available to the public when it came to opting out of tests. Not surprisingly this information was hard to access and inconsistent. This is, in part, what the government agencies are banking on.

Fortunately with the advent of social media and Web 2.0 tools, concerned individuals are able to unite to find, share, and collect information. One such effort to collect this information is The Opt Out of Standardized Tests - The International Movement Site. Upon joining, group members can find and contribute relevant information from their state or country.

I strive for a public system that welcomes everyone and helps to create learning communities that support both personal and communal growth through access to life long learning opportunities be them through schools, homes, community centers, libraries, parks, or any place that people young and old can gather to share in the co-creation of learning. I believe that for a healthy democracy and community that the system should be publicly funded and reject the ideas that we can standardized learning or teaching. We should look to support the well being of all humans not just those who can afford it! - David Loitz | Cooperative Catalyst member | IDEA Community Organizer

While opting out is a step in the right direction to achieve the above vision, there is a deeper conversation that must happen to address what some have called the rapid deterioration of public schools. However, rapid deterioration is misleading as we also need not fool ourselves about restoring our system to "the good old days." Remember, in the good old days we implemented a factory model of learning, where schools were segregated, there were limited or no options for females to participate in sports, and it mostly only filtered men into subjects like math and science. The outdated education system of today needs not only an update, but a transformation requiring a paradigm shift. To do that we must not be afraid to engage in difficult conversations that challenge traditional ideas of education.

This is because even if some parents earn and exercise the right for their children not to take standardized tests, there are many other issues that will still exist and will need to be addressed and discussed which include:

• Preparing children for the world, not just more school


• Providing passion (not just data) driven learning


• Reconsidering traditional school tests and grades


• Ensuring students have the freedom to learn among a connected world


• Measuring success in ways that benefit children


• Rethinking homework


• Thinking outside of traditional time and space constraints

We need to explore alternatives, give parents choice for how education dollars can be spent, and instead of demanding a one-size-fits all school model, allow parents and students to decide a learning environment that they feel is ideal for their families. This may mean alternative school settings such as a Democracy school like Summerhill or Sudbury where there are no grades or grade levels. It could mean a passion-driven model like Big Picture Schools. It could mean supporting home education options. It might mean investing in learning centers rather than schools as explained here by Connie Coyle and Linda Dobson in their visions for radical school reform. To do this we must act and engage in the often challenging work and conversations. Ones that will lead to giving choice to parents to ensure they have opportunities to provide the best possible learning options for their children without the control and imposition of government mandates which they do not support.

Okay, so now that the test is gone! Are we ready for some fun? Imagine it's the next day...
What type of learning community will your family be joining? What does it look like and value...? Think big, nothing is off limits! I mean really have some fun with it! When you are done, share it below, join our vibrant online learning group here and let's start making it happen!
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Want to learn more? Visit the original article here which contains additional resources and links to public education issues.

 

Follow Lisa Nielsen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Innovativeedu

Comments

[J R M]

01:46 AM on 09/06/2011

Tests are not innately evil. And they, or something equivalent to them (which we might as well call tests) are needed. The narrow teaching to a narrow test is a perversion of the intent. But some measure of what has been mastered is necessary. Indeed, standardized testing was introduced to open up education and professions to capable students who were not born into the social networks that had control over access to education and the professions.

The question is not eliminating testing, but using testing wisely to credential the mastery that students have achieved. In the process, students need to determine their weak points for additional effort or customization of their career plans to avoid fields that have excessive requirements on their weak areas.

[geogeller]

05:02 PM on 09/04/2011

part 2 continued - the military motto "Ours is to do and die and not to question why" my problme is i question why we have so many cultural problems in our society - why do we have the largest per-capita of our citizens in prison, or 65,000,000 americans are effected by the criminal justice system - and why is it that we lose so many good minds and thinkers who stop dreaming because of testing and because they don't feel they are good enough to be good enough and fall through the cracks - and so when i hear of testing, like in Pavlov's dog, i am again brought back to the trauma, still haunted by the shackles of tests- but the question i ask myself in you, is what does all this say about our society and education system that has failed so many young imaginative minds and locked them into poverty and a life unfulfilled and scream to be set free and what will people of the future say about us too - food for imagination

[geogeller]

05:01 PM on 09/04/2011

hmmm - ouch!! first i happen to be an inventor of a textile process some said would revolutionize the textile industry - even though i tested 5% mechanical ability on a 2 day private aptitude test i took in my teens - i like to think of what some call learning dis-abilities as learning gifts they challenged me to pay attention and taught me how to think for myself and sometimes to think out of the box too - actually i try and see the obvious that nobody else sees is my trade secret and also to me that is what invention is too - as you can see even in my writing - i rarely use conventional structure mainly because my mind fights tests and i can't memorize things still, but on other hand i can't forget things i have learned intuitively and intimately that have become me and i have become it and together they have made me, me too - i believe a genius is simply someone who is interested in something and becomes a vacuum cleaner - and in full disclosure i suffer from an incurable dis-ease called curiosityitis that i had to fight to recover and still recovering from too :-) - to me memorization is not learning its a false construct that has its puritanical and military assembly line education function that determines good test takers from not so good test takers - part 1