This began as a comment in the diary Teacher Ken posted re: a number of well-regarded educators coming to the support of teachers in WA state who are boycotting their district's mandatory standardized test (it's worth a read - go look).
That particular test is especially egregious, because while it is supposed to be designed exclusively for the district, and based on the district's curriculum, it is not. The test seems almost specifically designed to force the district to fail. Of course that's conjecture on my part, but it would certainly fit the well with the goals of the people who most strongly push the testing mantra: those who want to see more for-profit schools funded by taxpayer dollars at the expense of public schools. Since the test was foisted upon the district by a former administrator who had been fired for incompetence, well, it's not really far-fetched to expect that revenge against the district could have played a small role in choosing the test.
But the MAP test isn't the only high-stakes test out there. There are plenty of them clogging up school systems throughout the country. These tests are highly profitable, which is part of the reason the Bush Administration put so much effort into making them a national requirement. After all, his own brother owns Ignite, a company that provides standardized test preparation services to students.
One of the arguments encouraging us to let the Bush brother connection slide at the time was along the lines of, "Eh, what's a little conflict of interest, when our children's futures are at stake?".
Well, our children's futures were at stake, not because we weren't testing them with these magical, highly-profitable, future-predicting tests, but because we were about to launch the greatest offense on public education the nation had ever seen - by implementing these tests.
Follow me below the orange croissant for some meaty goodness ....