Your children deserve better than this, first-grade teachers tell parents.
Karen Hendren and Nikki Jones are highly regarded first-grade teachers at Skelly Elementary School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They wrote an open letter to the parents of the children in their classes that explains why they have decided not to administer a standardized test known as the MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) or student surveys that they believe violate students privacy.
The two teachers are part of a small but growing number of teacher who are refusing to administer standardized tests that they think are harmful to their students and publicly explaining why they are doing so, sometimes at the risk of being fired. A Colorado teacher recently wrote why she wont administer the Common Core PARCC exam, and a Florida teacher recently wrote a letter posted on Facebook to the parents of her students explaining why she was refusing to give a particular test to her kindergarteners. (A few days later, the Florida Education Department suspended the test though it did not mention the teacher in its announcement.)
The letter by Hendren and Jones appeared on the website of the United Opt Out National, a grassroots organization advocating for the rights of parents to opt their children out of standardized tests and against the privatization of public education. With permission, I am publishing their letter.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/11/18/your-kids-deserve-better-than-this-first-grade-teachers-tell-parents/
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