hs.credit: We “Arm the Rebellion” Against Standardized Testing
Imagine a tree lined New York Avenue. Mike, a high school student is walking in crisp November air. He turns the corner to see a building. Mike’s face lights up with a quick smile, an impulsive extra skip in his step as he hurries, eager to get to school. Today he will go to Washington Square Park to get some b-roll and interviews for an interdisciplinary mini documentary project.
Ria, a 16-year-old, is turning the corner to a different school that same morning. She lets out a tense sigh as she sees the building, preparing to do “seat time” between 42 minute bells. She will do paperwork — bubble sheets, worksheets, form essays — to demonstrate her learning. If she complies well with directions she will be left alone by authorities.
Over 100,000 11th and 12th grade students like Ria and Mike make that turn to school each morning in NYC. Imagine if every single one of those young adults felt excitement at the sight of school. That would impact foster care outcomes in our city, incarceration and mental health rates, drug abuse.
Hard to imagine such a thing. Sad to say. It’s hard to imagine NYC public schools working so well for our kids.
Is That Even Possible?
Is it possible to engage 11th and 12th grade students with important work? Their own expertise at play. Answering their own questions. Collecting their own primary sources. Student-centered learning. Skill building. Peer feedback circles instead of teachers having to do all the grading.
We all know this is already happening at a number of schools. Progressive private schools, New York Performance Standards Consortium schools, free from the Regents Exams.
Authentic Learning
It is well known that project-based learning and the related performance-based assessment are ancient ways of learning that our brain is best adapted for. These were displaced by factory learning for factory jobs. It’s time to go back to our roots rather than invent anything new in education.
Rather than just being against the tests, it’s time for a solutions-oriented approach. An opportunity to be FOR something that is so clearly better.
HS.CREDIT is a community eager to show that one youth media product uploaded per month over the 5 months of an AP course is a higher quality indicator of post-secondary success than a single 3-hour standardized exam. “Gold standard” academic data results from validated student-centered, project-based student work products that require revision and research, and not graded by the student’s teacher, but by three credit experts.
If this is making any sense to you, please get in touch. We need all the help we can get! We are currently still in stealth mode and heading to beta testing this summer.
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