Seattle Teachers' Uprising. Why they are protesting the MAP test.

Published on Jan 29, 2013

DemocracyNow.org - Earlier this month, teachers at Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington, voted unanimously to stop administering a widely used standardized test, calling them wasteful and unfairly used to grade their performance. They are now facing threats of 10-day suspension without pay if they continue their boycott. We go to Seattle to speak with two guests: Jesse Hagopian, a high school history teacher and union representative at Garfield High School who has refused to administer the MAP standardized test; and Wayne Au, a former high school teacher, assistant professor at the University of Washington, and author of "Unequal by Design: High-Stakes Testing and the Standardization of Inequality."

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The courageous action taken by teachers at Seattle's Garfield High School has won growing support and admiration, not only from the city's teachers, parents and students, but from teachers nationwide. Their announced refusal on January 10th to administer the Measure of Academic Progress (MAP), a poorly-constructed, high-stakes, standardized test, has once again brought national attention to disastrous testing-madness policies being pushed and enforced for the past 12 years under No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top.

..."Little kids in winter hats and parkas held hands, older folks waved signs. "I'd rather be teaching," read one. "Parent supports Garfield," read another. The vice president of the Chicago teachers union, Jesse Sharkey, called in, and his speech was shouted out to the crowd. "Sisters and brothers... There's only one way forward: Stick together and fight." Teachers learned today, in emergency after-school staff meetings, that they could be subject to 10-day suspensions without pay if they did not administer the test, according to Garfield teacher Jesse Hagopian. "They say we're disruptive?" Hagopian called out, right outside the closed doors of the school board meeting. "I think a test that is not aligned to my curriculum is disruptive. Threatening teachers with 10 days without pay is disruptive." The rally ended with a hearty rendition of "SCRAP THE MAP! SCRAP THE MAP!" before leaders reminded everyone to be respectful, and most of the group crowded into the meeting.