alternatives

Pressure from grassroots activists and a bipartisan group of policymakers has forced President Trump and Education Secretary DeVos to allow states to suspend federal standardized exam requirements in the wake of the coronavirus. To protect public school children, educators and their families, state leaders must now be pressed to:
  1) Apply immediately for waivers of federal assessment mandates by filing a formal request with the U.S. Department of Education to be relieved of Every Student Succeeds Act testing obligations; AND

FairTest Report: Test Reform Victories Surge in 2017: What’s Behind the Winning Strategies?

Assessment reform campaigns rolled back the amount of testing and slashed

Assessment Matters: Constructing Model State Systems to Replace Testing Overkill

This report describes how states can overhaul their assessment systems under the Innovative Assessment pilot program in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).  It shows policymakers how to:

With public schools closing for the summer, many states are reviewing their 2015-2016 testing experience (once again, not a pretty picture) and planning to implement assessment reforms in coming years.  You can help stop the U.S. Department of Education from promoting testing misuse and overuse by weighing in on proposed Every Student Succeeds Act regulations.

FairTest has created a PowerPoint presentation on how to organize testing resistance and reform under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.

You can view it in pdf here.

See this guide to organizing by Jeanette Deutermann, leader of the hugely successful Long Island Opt Out.

Another week of accelerating protests against high-stakes testing. If you find these news summaries useful for your assessment reform work, please contribute to help FairTest http://tinyurl.com/supportfairtest as suggested by Michelle Fine in her acceptance speech at last week's "Heroes in Education" awards presentation          

Organizing: Strategic Resources, Reports, Analyses 

This page includes FairTest discussions of testing reform organizing and links to supporting materials on high-stakes testing and authentic assessment.

New York Performance Standards Consortium

(Updated March, 2018)