Seattle Schools Community Forum

 Update: will you look at that?  Another Florida district is considering this idea (Palm Beach County School Board).  “They say testing has gotten out of control and creates too much pressure for students and teachers. After discussing the opt-out idea at a recent meeting, board members asked their lawyers for further study. They will discuss it again at a workshop in the next few weeks. “Sometimes it takes an act of civil disobedience to move forward,” School Board member Karen Brill said. “We must explore the consequences, but we cannot allow fear to hold us back.” In what can only be called unbelievable courage, a school district in Florida, Lee County, has voted to opt the entire district out of Common Core testing. The school board vote was 3-2 with the superintendent warning, "This will hurt children." From News-Press: Throughout the tense three-hour meeting, more than 33 people came forward to share their thoughts on the matter. Emotions came t...

The Stranger has an article (which I am in) about Common Core.   I actually didn't know that the main thrust of it was about some Seattle Schools' teachers who plan to boycott the Common Core assessments.  It seems to me like the same wolf in different sheep's clothing. How could we not boycott that?" says one longtime high-school teacher. "We objected to the MAP test because we didn't know to what standards it was addressed," she explains, and because it took time away from classrooms and computer labs. Moreover, the teachers couldn't look at the tests before having their students take it. "Smarter Balanced has all those disadvantages, but in addition, it's teaching to standards that have never been vetted in a classroom or by teachers," she says. This could be the first-ever teacher boycott of Obama's new standards and testing regimen, with the potential to set a precedent for the rest of the country. Critics say corp...