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We headed to Olympia on Presidents’ Day where a rally was being held to protest the massive influx of high stakes testing we are allowing our children to be impacted by. I never thought I’d see the day when I wished for the good old MSP or WASL. This new stuff, the Smarter Balance, is crazy. I understand the desire to create equity among all the kids in our country, but the levels at which our congressmen and other non-educators think they should be at is nuts. Wonder, inquiry and creativity seem to be getting stripped out of the system. Our children are being expected to regurgitate facts and be little calculators rather that exploring their world.

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Worse yet, the that all students must take to graduate high school is more difficult than the SAT. It’s been noted by my superintendent, among others, that our new standards and tests make it more difficult to graduate high school than to get into college. Testing is not the answer, draconian standards are not the answer. Listening to research and applying researched based practices that are supported by educators while attending to developmentally appropriate practices is a place to start…

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Anyhow, we were there, the four of us, marking up the bus with our feelings and laying down in protest in front is the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. By the time we left, the kids had learned something about democracy and I learned a lot too. I felt empowered and supported as a teacher, who does not want to give the test, and as a parent, who is pulling her kids from all the standardized testing this year. Enough, already. Let me teach, let my kids learn. They aren’t human capital, they are children. Let them behave as such.

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