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Posted by on May 23, 2008, 8:48 am
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Charlie
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/21/9134/
Civil Disobedience: South Bronx 8th-Graders Refuse the TEST! (I’m
Impressed.)
by Dan Brown
My spirits soared this morning when I saw the headline in the New York
Daily News: “Hell, No, we won’t take another test!“Virtually the entire
8th grade at the South Bronx’s Intermediate School 318 handed in blank
exam packets for a three-hour social studies practice test. The social
studies teacher, Mr. Douglas Avella, is being fingered for inciting the
boycott, but the students say otherwise. Here are some choice quotes
from the article:
Johnny Cruz, 15: “They’re saying Mr. Avella made us do this. They
don’t think we have brains of our own, like we’re robots. We students
wanted to make this statement. The school is oppressing us too much
with all these tests.”
Tatiana Nelson, 13: “We’ve had a whole bunch of these diagnostic
tests all year. They don’t even count toward our grades. The school
system’s just treating us like test dummies for the companies that make
the exams.”
Tia Rivera, 14: “Some teachers implied our graduation ceremony
would be in danger, that we didn’t have the right to protest against
the test. Well, we did it.”
Department of Education spokesman David Cantor: “This guy [teacher
Douglas Avella] was far over the line in a lot of the ways he was
running his classroom. He was pulled because he was inappropriate with
the kids. He was giving them messages that were inappropriate.”
High-stakes testing has spiraled out of control. Test companies, under
the guise of boosting accountability, are reaping millions and students
are being cheated out of their precious school days. We are kidding
ourselves if we think students aren’t wise to this scheme. The reason
we haven’t seen more uprisings like the incident at I.S. 318 is that
students have been intellectually and spiritually bludgeoned into
submission.
Perhaps the dramatic boycott at I.S. 318 can help to bring into focus
the fact that solely defining achievement via test scores (as is the
current practice) is not authentic assessment. High-stakes tests,
administered to students starting in early elementary school, terrify
children, narrow curricula, and distort the discourse on public
education. When supervisors’ bonuses (or jobs) hinge on one specific
factor — test scores — unhealthy fixation is a natural byproduct.
America’s test-mania leaves out too much important stuff, and students
are the losers for it. Comprehensive portfolios of standards-based
student work paint an infinitely truer picture of students’ growth and
achievement. We can keep standardized tests, but we must leave behind
the end-all, be-all nature they currently own. Going to school should
be about discovering and unlocking one’s potential through rigorous
work in a supportive, personal environment — not an endless rehearsal
for a basic skills test.
I applaud Douglas Avella’s students at I.S. 318 for taking a difficult,
risky stand on a high-stakes issue.
Dan Brown the author of the teacher memoir, The Great Expectations
School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle.
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