Resistance and Protest in Education

Protest and resistance have been grassroots tools that communities use to create systemic change. Today, protests in education are demanding common-sense approaches to education and education reform. Students, parents and families, teachers are banding together in cities across the country in protest of, among other things, school discipline policies and practices, teacher evaluation rubrics, and standardized tests.

My guest, Jesse Hagopian, is a history teacher at Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington. Jesse recently organized his fellow teachers at Garfield and other Seattle schools and refused to administer the state standardized test, the MAP (Measures of Academic Progress). This boycott has led to several other local efforts to resist the national push to test public-school students, rather than provide meaningful, teacher-developed assessment. Jesse will talk to us about the MAP boycott and about how it fits in the larger picture of resistance and protest in education.

Host Allison R. Brown is a civil rights attorney and President of Allison Brown Consulting (ABC), which works with schools and non-profit organizations to create education equity plans and promote equity in education in compliance with federal civil rights law.