By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org

SEATTLE –  Teachers at Seattle’s Garfield High School are refusing to give their students a district-required standardized test, the results of which are to be used in determining educators’ overall job performance.

The revolt might be spreading to other schools through the Seattle district. Late last week, 25 teachers at Ballard High School issued a letter condemning the standardized test and expressing support of their Garfield High colleagues.

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Testing at Garfield High was supposed to have begun in December, “but so far not a single class has shown up at the (computer) lab to take it,” reports the Seattle Times.

The teachers claim the test (known as Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP) “has a number of problems, everything from what it covers to how well it measures student achievement,” the Times reports.

At a press conference last week, the faculty claimed to have no beef with state-imposed standardized tests or testing in general. It’s just the MAP test they oppose.

Seattle school leaders are defending the test, and have made it clear “that they’re in the middle of a review of all tests that Seattle Public Schools students take, including MAP, with a report due to the School Board this spring,” the paper reports.

“We want to examine whether or not there are legitimate concerns about any test that we have here in Seattle Public Schools,” Bob Boesche, the district’s interim deputy superintendent, tells the Times.

Teachers will be invited to participate in the overview process, Boesche adds.

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Clearly, district leaders are hearing the teachers’ “voices” and are taking their concerns seriously. It’s quite possible that administrators will recommend the MAP test be fine-tuned or scrapped altogether.

Given that spirit of cooperation, why aren’t Garfield High faculty members waiting for the district’s final decision about MAP before they take such a hard line?

It could be that the Seattle teachers are attempting to spark a national movement against so called “high stakes” tests.

The Garfield High boycott is the first of its kind in a decade (the last being in Chicago), but it’s a strategy that teacher unions in Britain have used to great effect, writes Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post.

A teachers’ revolt in Britain led the government to revamp its testing practices, and England and Wales saw an overall reduction in the number of standardized tests, Strauss notes.

“The boycotts are part of a growing grass-roots revolt against the excessive use of standardized tests to evaluate students, teachers, schools, districts and states,” Strauss writes.

It’s unclear whether the teachers at Garfield High are trying to spark a national protest or if they’re just acting out of self-preservation.  Either way their actions qualify as insubordination and in the real world they would (and should) be fired.

The Seattle Times notes that this is the first year the MAP tests will be used in teacher evaluations.

Whatever the teachers’ motives may be, district leaders still expect them to administer the tests, and say they will deal with non-compliant educators on a case-by-case basis, the paper reports.

The Garfield High faculty may have legitimate concerns about the tests, but they must remember that they don’t own the schools, the community does. If teachers feel so strongly against the MAP test, they should resign and look for a job in another district.

Until then, they should simply do at they’re told.