Parent, teachers protest exams

Charging that standardized tests harm students and waste government resources, a group of teachers and parents took to Independence Mall on Tuesday to promote the small but growing movement to opt out of such testing.

The 25 protesters were joined by Jesse Turner, an education professor at Central Connecticut State University, who set out from Connecticut on June 11 on a march to the federal Department of Education in Washington to highlight and protest testing policies.

Turner denounced the exams alongside teachers who held up signs - "Real Education, Not Data" - and used a microphone to call on Pennsylvania to divert its testing budget to arts programs and libraries.

Some questioned the premise of the tests altogether, part of the recent push in Pennsylvania for students and parents to choose not to take the standardized exams. This year, several teachers at the city's Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences were investigated after they organized pickets and passed out fliers to tell parents that their children could decline the tests.

Several teachers at Tuesday's demonstration reiterated common criticisms of standardized exams.

Anne Tenaglia, a retired teacher who spent 30 years at Blankenburg Elementary School in West Philadelphia, said they fail to capture student progress in the classroom accurately, especially when students have learning disabilities or behavioral issues.

"These tests don't measure what the children really learn," Tenaglia said.

Daniel Symonds, who recently completed his first year of teaching seventh-grade social studies at Luis Muñoz Marín School, held up a sign in the shape of a pencil at the back of the protest. He came to the rally, he said, because he believes that testing is a "tremendous waste of money" and that schools should put resources elsewhere.

"Our schools are resource-starved," Symonds said. Paper for his classroom is in such short supply, he said, that he has to buy it for his students.

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@MadelineRConway