actions

[Monty Neill <monty@FAIRTEST.ORG>]

Several kinds of activity have been recently suggested on this list,
some of them recurring from time to time:

acting against the Bush testing plan
supporting Wellstone legislation
local organizing of various kinds
boycotts

On acting against the Bush plan or to support Wellstone's bill, both
have come up again. I hope people are beginning to deal with them. This
is not because Washington should be the focus of all our efforts, but
because 1) if the Bush bill becomes law, most of our efforts at the
state and local level will become a lot harder, and a lot more kids will
suffer -- and, very critically, the Bush scheme can be stopped if people
will act on it; 2) the Wellstone bill, which remains a long shot, can be
used to focus attention on high stakes. A call or letter to a
representative or senator, local organizing on the two, can be done
together. One of the potential uses of a national listserv is to help
foment joint activity. If you do something let us know the results --
don't please send 3 emails (I wrote a letter; I heard back; I wrote
again) but summarize the let us know what you are learning, what we
might learn, whether you have been able to connect anti-Bush or
pro-Wellstone to local activity and how, etc.

local organizing -- very crucial. New folks to this list who have not
been engaged in organizing should 1) check out the many materials on the
ARN pages of the FairTest website www.fairtest.org/arn -- these include
flyers, leaflets, ideas for actions, etc.; 2) if you have an idea of
something you want to initiate (e.g., a local forum, a petition), you
might ask folks on the list if they have done it and how it went and
options and things to look out for, etc -- but again, look also at the
website, because relevant info may already be there. Dave Stratman
recently posted some action ideas -- most of them are being done at
least somewhere (and a lot more in Mass than you could tell from his
post) and information about them is available on these kinds of
activities.

We will soon be posting to the website, I hope by end of next week, a
set of materials on working with the media.

boycotts: no doubt can be powerful. Student/parent boycotts have been
done on a limited basis in Mass, Michigan (briefly very extensive,
quelled in large part by substantial scholarships, up to $2500, offered
to those who do well on the test) and California, which legally allows
an opt out, and a little bit in a few other places. As some of the
discussion has suggested, organizing big boycotts is very hard, and even
then may not win. People in each state or district (depending on whether
you want to boycott a district or state test) should think a lot about
it and what it will take to pull it off. Teacher boycotts are rarer in
this country, thus far. I think we need to keep it on our agenda,
actions of this sort in one place can encourage others, and it is worth
building toward. But it is one basket among many. I would also note that
for a boycott to be successful, usually a legislature will have to
change a law -- so like it or not, the legislature cannot be ignored,
tho there are many ways to deal with that fact and it certainly does not
suggest reducing activity to focusing on legislature. Rather, the key
questions are about organizing and educating.

So, please pitch in on the national stuff (I am bothered that there has
been almost no response to this as yet on the list). And think about
what local/state organizing you think can be most effective and is
doable.

Monty Neill
FairTest

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