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Letter from Mia Kang

Ohanian Comment What good news to see that Mia Kang continues her thoughtful resistance! Maybe she can be a model for adults. As a 14-year-old, Freshman Mia Kang refused to take the TAKS. At that time her e-mail moniker was "bookish ballerina."

Hello all,

JK Rowling, author of the beloved Harry Potter series, will be visiting New York on Oct. 19th. Jo will give a reading to schoolchildren from New York public schools, a great and exciting gift from an author who has made such an impact on reading. However, the children who will attend have been picked on the basis of standardized test scores. This is an excerpt from the New York Times:
"The city's school administrators chose 40 schools to take part in the event on Oct. 19 on the basis of test scores, picking schools that had showed the most improvement in a single year on standardized reading test scores."

As all of us know, this is only a further perpetuation of the competitively-focused, punitive standardized testing system. I propose taking action on this issue and coordinating teachers who understand the detriment of standardized tests to speak out against the way these children were picked.

I am a seventeen-year-old activist in San Antonio, Texas, and I recently joined your listserv because of my longtime interest in education reform. I boycotted my state's standardized test in ninth grade. See this link: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA021905.1A.taks.bfe41eaf.html

I would really like to organize some kind of action around this issue, but I am not currently living in New York, so I just wanted to put it out there and see what NYCoRE members think.

Sincerely,

Mia Kang
mia.kang@yahoo.com
Esperanza Peace and Justice Center
San Antonio, Texas
www.esperanzacenter.org
210.228.0201

— Mia Kang
e-mail to NY Core
2007-10-08


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