Solange Castro Belcher: What effects do you feel the present system of standardized testing has had on students and teachers?

Alex Caputo-Pearl: For the last few years, money has been tied to test results through the API (Academic Performance Index). Schools in the top 10% of income brackets have received disproportionately more income than schools in the lower income brackets. The practice of giving out relatively small amounts of money based on test score improvements covers over and obscures the need for a more expansive infusion of money in low income communities of color.

Also, the high school exit exam will affect graduation for the class of 2004 and beyond. That’s basically going to prevent thousands of students from getting a high school diploma. In the 2000 – 2001 testing exam, Latino and Black students failed at twice the rate of White students. The same was true for low-income students in comparison to middle and high-income students. CEJ doesn’t put out politics that says that any of these test results are the fault of kids. It’s the fault of a system that 1) administers the Stanford 9 and the high school exit exam across unequal schools, 2) gives these tests only in English, and 3) pressures schools with the threat of a state takeover based on test results. What this often leads to, especially in schools that are most stigmatized by low scores, is teachers teaching to the test, which is also a narrowing of the curriculum. This leaves less room to demand things like ethnic studies or other classes. For all these reasons, CEJ believes that these tests have a racially discriminatory and class-biased impact.

SCB: How have students and teachers and parents in greater LA protested the present testing system?

ACP: The range of programs have included rallies at schools, marches at schools, and working with the school board to bring a motion that will get the district to study alternatives to high stakes testing. Other tactics have included organizing delegations to talk with board members and senate and assembly members, as well as petition drives, letter writing campaigns, speaking at board meetings, developing alliances with other groups that are concerned about education, and passing motions within the teachers’ union to get the union to take a progressive position on standardized testing issues. We’ve supported efforts to protect parents’ rights to waive their kids out of the exams. We’ve also held media events and worked with legal organizations around protecting our rights to free speech on campus and our right to organize at schools.

SCB: What is CEJ's plan of action to eliminate testing in LAUSD schools?

ACP: I think our strategy has sort of two different sides to it. One is to build an organization that has a very strong critique of the status-quo in education and an anti-racist critique of what’s going on in schools. We are striving to be an organization that considers itself to be putting out a militant and independent politics. The other piece of our strategy is to actually try to move through the institutions like the school board, the senate and the assembly. The idea is to get a motion passed that would get the district to devote resources to studying alternatives to standardized testing. Then we can use the passage of that motion as a platform to demand more, which would be a motion six months later, or eight months later. This motion would ask for the district to stop administering high stakes tests in favor of some of these alternatives that have been studied. We’re working on a state-wide piece where we’re working with board members and grassroots organizations in San Francisco and other districts around the state who are also interested in bringing forward local school board motions like these. We think that if enough districts bring these motions forward it will put pressure on the governor and the state Board of Education.

SCB: What options do you believe LAUSD might consider in alternative to standardized testing?

ACP: There has been a lot of research on portfolios, learning exhibitions, and school accountability systems that are based on parent, student and teacher input, along with portfolios and student work. We think this study would sort of bring those things that have already been studied into a package that would mean something to people on the board and in the public.

SCB: What can students and teachers around Los Angeles do to protest standardized testing?

ACP: They can always waive out of the Stanford 9 exam. We know of people who have developed their own demonstrations and written articles that they have distributed at their schools. I think that the key to winning things for the progressive movement and the anti-racist movement is joining organizations and having organizational power, rather than smaller acts of resistance. I think the best thing for people to do is join such an organization.