Seattle teachers boycott EPAS-type preparation tests... High school united against useless overtesting
[Editor's Note. The following article, "Garfield teachers refuse to give district-required test" was posted by Linda Shaw to the website of the Seattle Times. The equivalent in Chicago would be that high school teachers veto participation in the tests now being ordered across the networks to give pre-tests in preparation for the invalid EPAS sequence.]
The story appears below:
History teacher Jesse Hagopian discusses Garfield High School teachers’ decision to refuse to the give the MAP test to their students during a press conference in Seattle on Thursday. (Photo by Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)
Teachers at Seattle’s Garfield High School are refusing to give the district-required MAP tests to students, saying the tests are bad and waste time and resources.
They think it may be the first time that all teachers at a single school have decided to protest a test by boycotting it.
The Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) exams are given two to three times a year to ninth-grade students at Garfield, as well as to many students throughout the district. They cover reading and math, and the district uses them as one way to measure the progress of students and schools, and the performance of teachers. Garfield students were scheduled to take the tests this month.
In a news release, Kris McBride, Garfield’s academic dean and testing coordinator, said the test “produces specious results, and wreaks havoc on limited school resources” during the weeks the test is administered.
All the teachers scheduled to give the tests have decided not to do it, according to a prepared release. In December, most of the rest of the faculty and non-administrative staff reportedly voted to support them.
