STUDENTS--BOYCOTT THE MEAP!
We think we can have
good schools with great teachers, excited andenthusiastic kids, and involved 
parents
taking a leadership role in critical education. We can have honest administrators
supporting the struggle for useful knowledge. The MEAP has NOTHING to do
with this!
Don't Like the MEAP? Read
On...
What's wrong with the MEAP? You know...
Practically, the MEAP shatters the progress of the curriculum
through the school year.
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The MEAP robs teachers of our most precious commodity, time with kids...
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The MEAP now takes up to 40% of the instructional time in many schools...
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The MEAP is alien to our classrooms. It is not designed to meet/
test the specific needs and abilities of our unique children. So far, the
MEAP has guaranteed that many students fail.
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The MEAP divides children, teachers, and parents--as well as schools
and school systems. It pits them one against another...in an era which
stresses cooperative learning.
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The powerful message of the MEAP to kids is that THIS is the real purpose
of school...score high and set yourself free...Not. The MEAP is designed
to create safe employees, not critical thinkers.
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Administration of the MEAP is conducted unevenly--some school systems
applying high pressure tactics, others simply trying to get through. The
MEAP is scored inconsistently, unfairly.
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The MEAP is a racist exam, measuring race and class background,
that will reinforce segregated schooling. Parents, teachers, and kids
have nothing to gain from taking the MEAP.
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MEAP scores, as with most of these exams, assesses parental income,
and little else. Authentic assessment is not a got-cha exam. It is
the steady evaluation of meaningful work over time.
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The exam wrecks good schools. It demands tracking and ability groups.
It is a spectacle unto itself, kids being ordered to hold MEAP rallies,
fed special food on MEAP days, and we know full well that administrators
all over the state are cheating on the MEAP.
Philosophically, the MEAP is a PARTISAN exam--truth is determined
by the political leanings of the people who wrote it. Truth, moreover,
is located inside the exams, and inside the minds of the people who score
it, not as it is rightfully understood as a struggle in the classroom where
people can gain and test knowledge. The MEAP is designed to deskill teachers
and to establish official, regulated, state knowledge.
Why
are Clinton and Engler united 
With NEA and AFT?
How come they ALL like the MEAP?
You Can ACT on the MEAP!
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Get your union to change its position on national and state exams. Demand
the professional academic freedom to design your own exams and evaluations.
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Urge parents to exempt kids from the MEAP. Tell kids not to take it.
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Tell the kids the truth about the MEAP and teach around it--not to it.
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Write for our newsletter about your experiences with the MEAP.
The
Rouge Forum of the Metro-Detroit Whole Schooling
Consortium. Join us!
(For more info on the MEAP see http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/dreamcensors.htm)
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