Testing Times

In the summer of 1997, the Durant School applied for a variance from the state exams, maintaining that it upheld and even surpassed the broad state standards. [It is important to note that there are two sets of standards at play in this struggle—the broad state learning standards that address the development of cognitive skills, and the narrow content standards for the different subject areas.] The school asked that instead of exams, it be allowed to continue to evaluate the students' attainment of the broad learning standards through its own performance-based assessments, especially as these very same assessments had recently been publicly commended by the state as a model for high schools to emulate. To its great shock, the state denied the request, maintaining that any alternative assessments to the state exams had to be externally developed; individual schools' assessments could no longer be trusted to ensure high standards. This rejection illustrates just how dramatically the educational and ideological climate has been transformed in the past decade. Performance-based assessments and local control have been knocked from the vanguard, usurped by standardized tests with their scientific claims of "objective" reliability and validity, delivered by bureaucrats from "on-high." However, the Durant School did not surrender its principles so easily: the fight had only just begun.

Throughout the 1997-1998 school year, the principal of the Durant School maintained contact and eventually joined forces with a group of non-traditional high schools in the state, most of which are located together in another city, nearly 400 miles away. These schools were also fighting the state exam mandates, maintaining that their performance-based assessments not only upheld their missions and programs, but were also valid measures of the broad state standards. This union of schools, which now included the Durant School, decided to apply for a group waiver from the exams. However, rather than rushing forward with the request, they thought it best to take their time and build as strong a case for their alternative assessments as they could.

While this group effort was underway, the Durant School, cautious that the state might turn down the group waiver as well, began to examine other possible strategies to circumvent the testing mandates. Charter schools was one idea, and in the fall of 1998, during their biweekly school based planning team meetings, staff, students, and parents discussed together this possibility as a way to preserve the Durant School's autonomy. Though the idea was appealing to some, there was also strong philosophical opposition to such a move, especially regarding the siphoning of public school funds for these schools and their use by the religious right. Later, when it was discovered that charter school students would still be required to pass the state exams to graduate, the idea became moot. During this same period, there was also talk about granting GEDs in lieu of state diplomas. Yet, again, there were grave concerns, especially that such a move would bar future education or job opportunities to Durant School graduates and be publicly perceived as a retreat from quality learning.

While the development of internal strategies for maintaining the school's autonomy and integrity was crucial, the school realized that these strategies alone were not enough, that a public relations campaign was also essential in a successful fight against the state standards mandates. Therefore, as the internal strategies were discussed and debated in the weekly staff and biweekly school based planning team meetings, the Durant School began to pursue several avenues of gaining public support for the school, and consequently, its request for a variance from the state exams. Heeding the advice of a sympathetic member of the city's board of education, the principal and staff enlisted parents, a.k.a. "voters," as lobbyists to advocate for the school. A special meeting was convened in November 1998 for staff to talk with a group of responsive parents about the threat these exams posed to their children's education. These parents in turn offered to organize and attend meetings with members of the board of education and the schools' superintendent to enlist their support. Also, the school's community board—a board consisting of staff, parents, students, and community supporters of the Durant School—decided to organize and sponsor a local conference, open to the public, on the effects of the state exams on student learning.