By a vote of 48 to 1, Ingraham staff passed the following resolution:
A RESOLUTION OF DISAPPROVAL OF THE Ingraham High School
WHEREAS Ingraham High School strives to provide an excellent education
to every student;
WHEREAS the Smarter Balanced Assessment is not required for graduation;
WHEREAS this computer-based assessment will take approximately eight
hours for each 11th grader to complete and its confusing format is
unlike anything students will experience outside the testing
environment;
WHEREAS there are not enough computers to test the students in a
reasonable amount of time and it is unacceptable for computers to be
unavailable to non-testing students for such a long period of time;
WHEREAS the failure rate of the assessment is going to be
extraordinarily high (possibly 60%) for the general population and
even higher for students of color, ELL students, and students on
individualized education plans;
WHEREAS student performance on this test will in no way be indicative
of their learning and instead this test must be given to meet
arbitrary, antiquated and poorly considered state and federal
mandates;
WHEREAS graduation and standardized testing requirements in Washington
State are confusing and poorly communicated;
WHEREAS the sheer number of state-mandated standardized tests is unacceptable;
WHEREAS in addition to other assessments during the last seven weeks
of school, we must administer one month of International Baccalaureate
exams, several weeks of AP testing, many weeks of 11th grade SBA
testing, the 10th grade ELA exit exam, the Biology EOC exam, the
Geometry EOC exam, and the Algebra 1 EOC exam, many of which are
required for graduation or could possibly earn students college
credit;
WHEREAS during this time we are also required to teach our students
and administer year-end finals and projects; and
WHEREAS the detrimental impact on the school schedule and more
importantly student learning cannot be justified simply to meet a
superfluous bureaucratic requirement;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED the members of the Seattle Education
Association at Ingraham High School object to the administration of
the 11th grade Smarter Balanced Assessment for spring 2015 as an
unacceptable obstruction to providing an excellent education to every
student.
Seattle Education 