Below is a letter I crafted to send to my local superintendent. Probably to your surprise it is rational and respectful. Please feel free to copy, revise, and send to your school administrators
Dear School Administrator,
Things are changing dramatically. Pennsylvania has joined the ranks of states that no longer requires Superintendents to have state recognized credentials.
People with no real interest in the education of children are salivating at the new education market driven by the reforms of both Bush and Obama.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/02/usa-education-investment-idINL2E8J15FR20120802
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/marketplacek12/2012/08/as_assessments_change_and_scores_drop_business_opportunities_arise.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2
And the best research available is conclusive that the high stakes standardized tests only measure out of school factors (income, race, homelike, etc) validly and reliably.
In fact, according to Berliner, unless we address these out of school factors (poverty in particular) any use of resources to bring up test scores is a senseless use of resources and time. Although as educators we have an “in school” influence, out of school factors significantly trump the power of educators. Therefore, given the socio-economic status of our students we already can predict (with precision) their test scores even before they take the test.
These and other issues just illustrate the war being waged on public education.
Our test scores will eventually be used to “prove” to our neighbors that our school is failing, our teachers are failing, and our leadership is failing. Why? Because the bar is going to be constantly raised (even if NCLB goes away and the Common Core with new assessments take prominence) and the out of school factors I mentioned above will create a ceiling effect. We will only be able bring scores up so far unless we plan on intervening in out of school factors.
In other words, this system was and is still being designed to create failing schools. Why? To get access to the millions of dollars tied up in our school budget.
This is why I fight against high stakes testing. It has nothing to do with a personal disapproval of testing. In fact if we tested using sampling methodology without high stakes attached I would be supportive 100%. I also support any teacher designed assessments and I even support driver’s tests 
.
Please take a look at what is going on in Texas and nationally.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/in-texas-a-revolt-brews-against-standardized-testing/2012/03/15/gIQAI5N0VS_blog.html
http://timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution/
Also see
http://dianeravitch.net/2012/08/08/why-and-how-to-end-the-misuse-of-testing/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/high-stakes-testing-protests-spreading/2012/05/30/gJQA6OQX0U_blog.html
I am always available and willing to talk more about ways we can Save Our Schools.
Sincerely,
Tim
Follow Timothy D. Slekar on Twitter: www.twitter.com/slekar
I was just going to post a Police video if you didn’t already.
My children’s school is labeled “in need of improvement” because of a small subgroup of Special Education students have not made AYP. Despite what NYS Ed Dept says, my communities elementary school is excellent.
The same will now happen to teachers, as they will be judged on “growth” using test scores. Even a great school will have a good number of teachers labeled ineffective. This is how the ed “deformers” will use testing to hammer their wrong headed agenda. By using tests to judge schools, the deformers were able to use exams to label areas in poverty, esp urban schools, as failures. Schools in middle and upper class suburbs survived for the most part because their kids did well on the tests. Now the deformers have figured that they can label a percentage of teachers failing by using AYP and VAM to blame any public school. This is why suburban schools and their teachers need to wake up, YOU ARE NEXT.
Here is some more proof that our schools are failing. The obvious solution? Vouchers, ofcourse!
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/education/entries/2012/08/08/more_area_schools_fail_federal.html