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Friday, February 26, 2016

I am not opting out of high-stakes testing, I am opting for jusitce

Why I am going to the United Opt Conference, February 26 – 28, 2016: Transcending Resistance, Igniting Revolution? 49 states spend more money on their wealthy schools than their poor schools, (Quality Counts 2015 Education Week Report). Jonathan Kozol said in "The Sahme Of The Nation: The Restoration of Aparteid Schooling in America: “There is something deeply hypocritical in a society that holds an inner-city child only eight years old "accountable" for her performance on a high-stakes standardized exam but does not hold the high officials of our government accountable for robbing her of what they gave their own kids six or seven years before.”
I am going to the United Opt 2016 conference, because equity matters more than any standardized test.
I am going to the United Opt 2016 conference, because it is immoral for the wealthiest nation to pretend that testing and standards solves 49 states to spending more money on their wealthy schools than their poor schools
I am going to the United Opt 2016 conference, because one cannot separate standardized testing, and the history of American Eugenics. American Eugenics reconstructed racism into a sick quasi scientific racism deeply rooted in the belief that Black, Hispanics, Jews, Biracial people, and mentally challenged are inferior to White Americans. On poverty they love to discuss that slums don't make the poor, the poor make slums. In other poverty is a choice made by people of color and the poor. The poor make poverty not the privileged. It all a choice, and that choice can be rooted out through educational testing and selection.
I am going to the United Opt 2016 conference, because testing is not equity.
I am going to the United Opt 2016 conference, because standards will never bring equity to our public schools.
I am going to the United Opt 2016 conference, because poverty is not a choice.
I am going to the United Opt 2016 conference, because the policies of No Child Left Behind, Race To The Top, and Every Stduent Succeeds Act are reattemps of an elite previleged class of Americans to once again blame the poor for being poor, blame people of color for the racism they face everyday.

Thus I am going to the United Opt 2016 conference, because high-stakes testing is a defict view of America's children still deeply rooted in the politics of Racism. Like Principal Jammal Bowmen I view Opting opt  opting out not as opting out of a test, but as opting out for jusitce.

Let me make this simple and perfectly clear even if it offends supporters of "Every Student Succeeds Act. Policies rooted in viewing public education rooted in high-stakes testing are rooted in racism. Fight the testing, and you are fight ingracism.Still marching,
Jesse The Walking Man Turner



If you want to know which song I'll be singing with Barry Lane driving down from Connecticut to
Philadelphia to the National Opt Out conference this morning it's... that 60's hit "Get Together" by the Young bloods  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WybIhLJjlTY 
 




Sometimes when injustice rules the land, you just start walking for justice.


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