An alliance of 44 education advocacy groups—including anti-testing supporters—from Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York will hold a rally and march Saturday in New York City.
According to a news release from Save Our Schools, the groups, which include New York School Allies for Public Education, the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, and the New Jersey Education Association, are asking parents, educators and lawmakers to support a “developmentally appropriate and equitably funded public education free from the influence of corporate reform and high-stakes testing.” Supporters will gather at 2 p.m., May 17, in City Hall Park in Manhattan and march to the New York City Department of Education.
The Taking Back Our Schools rally aims to serve as a sign of solidarity and recognition of the growing tide of public dissatisfaction with high-stakes tests and student data-sharing and privacy concerns. Save Our Schools says there were more than 33,000 test refusals this spring in New York state.
“2014 is the year parents and teachers take back their schoolhouses,” Kevin Glynn, a co-founder of the Long Island, N.Y.-based anti-testing and anti-privatization group Lace to the Top, said in the release. “We are shutting the door on corporations and so-called philanthropists that seek to profit from labeling our children as failures.”