This just in:

25 teachers at nearby Ballard High School signed a letter today stating support for their Garfield colleagues.

Dora Taylor

Whereas

The MAP test is a resource expensive and cash expensive program in a district with very finite financial resources,

The MAP test is not used in practice to inform student instruction,

The MAP test is not connected to our curricula,

The MAP test has been re-purposed by district administration to form part of a teacher’s evaluation, which is contrary to the purposes it was designed for, as stated by its purveyor, making it part of junk science,

The MAP test has also been re-purposed for student placement in courses and programs, for which it was not designed,

The MAP test was purchased under corrupt crony-ist circumstances (Our former superintendent, while employed by Seattle Public Schools (SPS) sat on the corporation board of NWEA, the purveyor of the MAP test. This was undisclosed to her employer. The initial MAP test was purchased in a no-bid, non-competitive process.)

The MAP test was and remains unwanted and unneeded and unsolicited by SPS professional classroom educators, those who work directly with students,

The MAP test is not taken seriously by students, (They don’t need the results for graduation, for applications, for course credit, or any other purpose, so they routinely blow it off.)

The MAP test’s reported testing errors are greater than students’ expected growth,

The technology administration of the MAP test has serious flaws district wide which waste students’ time,

therefore

We, the undersigned educators from Ballard High School do hereby support statements and actions of our colleagues at Garfield High School surrounding the MAP test. Specifically, the MAP test program throughout Seattle Public Schools ought to be shut down immediately. It has been and continues to be an embarrassing mistake. Continuing it even another day, let alone another month or year or decade, will not turn this sow’s ear into a silk purse.

Ballard High School teachers