PETITION TO END
HIGH-STAKES STANDARDIZED TESTING
Adopted at the National
Student/Youth Conference to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration
and Struggle for Equality, on June 1, 2001
400-500 voted for, 3 against,
13 abstaining
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High-stakes standardized tests reflect and amplify the
social inequalities of race, class and gender in our society.
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High-stakes standardized tests tend to deform and
circumscribe the subject matter of education, undermining both student
and teacher creativity and forcing teachers to "teach to the test".
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Standardized testing makes it more difficult for
teachers to be innovative and creative and to tailor teaching to the
needs of individual students.
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High-stakes standardized tests reward rote memorization
and minimize critical thinking.
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High-stakes standardized tests further stratify students
and schools into artificial ranks and orders.
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The right-wing trend toward increased use of high-stakes
standardized tests is an attack on the fundamental idea of equality of
opportunity for all.
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Tying the disbursement of resources to student test
scores further erodes the resources in the poorest, most troubled
schools and rewards relative privilege with more privilege.
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Standardized tests do not measure merit or intelligence
or human worth.
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Standardized test scores correlate most strongly, not
with any question of merit, but with the relative privileges of race and
socioeconomic status and amount to a means of rationalizing preferences
for certain racial and class privileges.
We, the undersigned supporters of the new civil rights
movement, call for an immediate end to high-stakes standardized testing.
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