[lbo-talk] [SPAM_ISU] :Re: vox populi: standardize testing

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri May 18 18:13:29 PDT 2012


[WS:] Well, the piece that quoted shows that vox populi is overwhelmingly against standardized testing. Am I missing anything?

Well, no, except what your P.S. reveals you are missing. People usually organize when and only when someone who thinks they should organize goes out and tries to organize them. Create a paper Parents&Teachers Against Testing group, and distribute leaflets door to door in your school district. Call a meeting of those who respond & your organization is no longer just a paper one. Put out a press release & get one or two teachers to distribute it to teachers elsewhere in the city. At some point start door-to-door distribution of a petition to the governor & the legislature to stop the horror -- not because it will affect the governor or the legislature but because it will have a tremendous effect on those who distribute it and a significant effect on those who sign it, some of whom you can attract to a city-wide demo. Get in touch with other left groups (including of course the Occupation, if one still is active there). Some of the parents in one or two of the districts very possibly can/will lead an occupation of their school. Who knows where it will go from there. Are janitors being laid off or having their union busted by privatization? That would be one union local to begin with.

But you are the one who thinks people ought to do it, so get off your complaining stool & go to work.

Carrol

PS. I seriously think that people should start organizing to pass state legislation either outlawing or neutralizing standardized testing. I don't think that just because the testing industrial complex wants it, it is a done deal.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list