Pi Day, Thursday (get it? 3-14. haha), is also the day students in Colorado will take—or not take—the state’s Transitional Colorado Assessment Program (TCAP) tests, depending on whether or not they stay home from school as part of a protest being organized by students in the state against standardized testing. A peaceful protest is planned at 11 am at the state’s Capitol Building.
Their reasons for “opting out” of the state tests include not wanting to sacrifice “creative, conceptual, and critical thinking” skills for “test prep” drills in their classes, according to one video that underscores some of the problems with the TCAPs.
Student leaders of the movement advise those who wish to protest peacefully not to leave school if they have already started testing, as this could result in disciplinary action or the invalidation of all students’ test scores from their building.
“We’re not afraid to stand up for our education,” declares a student organizer named “Bailey” in the video on YouTube that provides instructions on how to protest.
Protests have occurred elsewhere. In Oregon, Alexia Garcia, the student representative to the Portland Public Schools Board of Education, describes a protest and takes “a strong stand against standardized testing as a whole,” and specifically against standardized tests when they’re used to measure the quality of students, teachers, or schools. In January, she responded to the school board’s letter to the governor.
In 1787, about 11 years after he wrote the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote to his friend and the man who would succeed him in the presidency of the young United States, James Madison:
I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
It’s that second sentence that has me most afraid. Be successful, students. And don’t do anything that would reduce the force of your rebellion, for if it’s unsuccessful, the situation with testing could only get worse. Jefferson would consider that an encroachment on your rights and therefore abhorrent. But what he says is true, as much as he appears not to desire such an outcome.
I also suspect you think it’s not possible for standardized testing to get any worse in America. Not that long ago, I would have agreed with you. However, there seems to be no bottom in the pit to which our government and business leaders are taking standardized tests these days. They were never meant to go there, but here we are!
My thoughts in Maryland will be with you in Colorado Thursday and in the aftermath!
