Listen to The Innovative Educator Share Ideas for Fixing Schools Not Children

This is my interview on Parents as Partners where I discuss ideas about fixing the school rather than the child.  I spend quite some time discussing ideas for opting out of standardized tests.

• Come take a listen here at Parents as Partners. 
• Check out links at LiveBinder Link
• Check out the Chat log
• Read We Would Prefer Not To Take Your Standardized Tests

What's Popular This Week on the Innovative Educator

Here’s the roundup of what's been popular on The Innovative Educator blog this week. Below you’ll see my top weekly posts along with the number of pageviews in the past 7 days.

This week the big winner is 7 Solutions for Educators Who Want 21st Century Students to Tune In. In it I combat the idea that technology is to blame for distracted students, but rather it is the fault of teachers who haven't learned to update practice.  The next two popular posts featured the fantastic passion panel I was a part of at the Virtual Tech Conference and my guest appearance on Parents as Partners.  I hope to have these available soon as archives. 

Rounding out the top is Creating a Personal Success Plan - A Sensible Alternative to Standardized Tests which is the first in a three-part piece about alternatives to standardized tests.  Stay tuned next week for the other two pieces in the series.  

6 Ideas to Prepare Students for Success & Assess Teachers without Standardized Testing

Just type the word “test” into the search box on Facebook and you’ll find thousands of parents distraught over the standardized tests their children are being forced to take despite the fact that these parents know it is not in the best interests for their children who in many cases are becoming physically ill and emotionally traumatized by the experience of sitting for up to two weeks straight filling out bubble sheets and answering prompts.  Schools are reluctant and even misleading when it comes to informing parents they can simply opt out often arguing that although they acknowledge that it might not be in the best interest of the child, without standardized tests, everything will fall apart.  


For many there is no alternative imaginable as in this comment from a student studying to be a teacher.

I can't STAND standardized tests. Every professor (and grad student) at my teaching college hates them. And yet, I have not heard a single responsible alternative to them. How do we assess if students are learning the curriculum without them? If teachers are teaching? If entire schools are failing? Yes, they are undeniably hideous, and "teaching to the test" is an awful, unavoidable consequence of them, but if we take them away...then what?

Isn’t it odd
Isn’t it odd that in PK - 12 school life we think we can’t measure success without one-size-fits all government imposed tests, yet, once we leave school and enter college or the real world, this magically is no longer true?  For those unable to imagine a world where we can assess without standardized tests, I bequeath upon you these ideas. 

Developing an Authentic ePortfolio

Did you ever feel frustrated that in school you are supposed to spend all this time studying, taking tests, completing worksheets and handing in reports with no audience beyond the teacher and after years of that all your left with is a pile of tests and papers nobody cares about? School shouldn’t be preparing you for more school. Should be preparing students for the world, but unfortunately, the thing that is most important often falls through the cracks and is replaced by more and more testing and measuring. If you’ve decided to opt out of school and opt into the real world, you’ll have time to begin preparing your ePortfolio where you can share with everyone how great you are!


In the real world ePortfolios are actually just called websites or blogs and the point is to show the world how fabulous you are and what you can do. When you create it here are some of the sections you may consider including.

Creating a Personal Success Plan - A Sensible Alternative to Standardized Tests

Though people are very different, each with their own passions, talents, interests, and abilities, in traditional school settings, most students are all given the same path and grouped with others by date of manufacture. At the age where youth are entering college or the workforce, many have never been given the opportunity to find what they love. This is because for many students, school fosters dependency learning and a false sense that if you just keep doing as you’re told, it will eventually pay off...even though there may never be time to figure out where it is you actually want to go. This holds true not only for students dissatisfied with school, but also for students with high achievement like Amy, Carlie, Jessica, Maria  and this insightful Valedictorian who felt high school robbed her of this opportunity. Upon graduation, she took her diploma and hit the road literally and went on an adventure to make up for lost time and explore who she really is and what she loves. You can follow her adventures on her blog America Via Erica. You’ll notice that once she left school behind, Erica had the opportunity to set her own personal goals which she can change and update as she learns and as she pleases. 

Currently her goals are:

• attend survival course
• buy survival gear
• buy a van
• learn Korean
• avoid arrest

“School is torture because I am required to spend all my time doing menial tasks, worksheets, and rote memorization.

This takes too much time away from being able to discover my hobbies, interests, or passions. I’m in 10th grade and I don’t foresee having the ability to do that before I graduate high school."

-Adam Ritter, Valedictorian track honors student

Making goals for personal success is something that is often overlooked in school. Your goals are usually defined by the school and look something like this.

Petition Against Taking Standardized Tests

This petition comes from (http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/rouge_forum).  It can be used as a guide to start a petition in your area.  

To:  The President, Congress, and the Governors of All 50 States



Whereas high stakes standardized tests, an international phenomenon, represent a powerful intrusion into classrooms, often taking up as much as 40% of teacher time, And whereas the tests pretend that one standard fits all, when one standard does not fit all,
And whereas these tests measure, for the most part, parental income and race, and are therefore instruments which build racism and anti-working class sentiment--against the interest of most teachers and their students,