Join Dora and PAA-Seattle for the Standardized movie
Seattle students now receive hours of standardized testing from the MAP test to the MSP and soon more testing related to the Common Core Standards. PAA President Dora Taylor, founder of PAA-Seattle, invites the community to join PAA-Seattle on May 14th at 6:30 PM to view the film "Standardized" and participate in an informal panel discussion.
This event is free to all. Parents, students, teachers and concerned citizens are invited.
Location: Northwest Film Forum, at 1515 12th Ave, Seattle, 98122 in the Capitol Hill area.
To RSVP, please send a short message to seattled@icloud.com.
This movie is sponsored by Seattle Education and Parents Across America, Seattle.
More action in Charlotte
PAA's Pamela Grundy also reports that one of their NC opt-out moms wrote a great entry about the group's ongoing experiences on her blog.
PAA Charlotte NC affiliate MecklenburgACTS.org is helping organize a Community Rally for Public Education to be held in Charlotte on May 10.
This event will be at the first Moral Monday of the legislative season in Raleigh that begins on May 19.
Details are on the flyer to your left and on the
MecklenburgACTS.org
web site.
MecklenburgACTS.org is a supporting sponsor, and they hope to get a big turnout in order to let state legislators know how serious their voters are about improving the conditions in which our state's teachers work, and our state's children learn.
Meck-Ed will have a "testing section" at the rally that specifically addresses testing.
They offered three Advocacy Training sessions during April, which focused on how to encourage state legislators to raise average teacher pay in North Carolina.
They have also posted an online advocacy toolkit.
PURE testimony on testing
PAA Board Secretary and founding member Julie Woestehoff, of Chicago's PURE, testified at two separate legislative hearings this week on topics relating to standardized testing.
She spoke to members of the Illinois Senate Education Committee holding a subject matter hearing on testing. Her testimony covered various aspects of standardized testing misuse and overuse, including student retention, teaching to the test, and inappropriate testing of young children. She offered suggestions for improving assessment and recommended an explicit parental opt out right in state law.
Julie also submitted testimony to a state Truancy Task Force which is meeting to develop recommendations for stemming the epidemic of truancy in the Chicago Public Schools. Her comments suggested that high-stakes testing may be driving many students out of school.