Emancipatory Education Now | High-Stakes Standardized Testing

SJSU Lurie College of Education

Emancipatory Education Now is a student-led initiative at the SJSU Lurie College of Education that examines what emancipatory education – the critical evaluation of the systems and structures of oppression that maintain the status quo in our educational institutions – looks like in today’s society and advocates for the expansion of emancipatory education research, policies, and practices.

In this episode, Aminah leads a dialogue around high-stakes standardized testing. The co-hosts shared their insights framed by questions such as:

• What are your initial reactions to this reading? Do you have any examples or questions that came to mind after the reading?
• How do you think standardized testing practices racial inequality and who do you think it affects the most?
• How can we support students who are affected by the inequalities of standardized testing, when these practices are still in place?
• What are possible standardized testing alternatives you would implement/want to see implemented in schools that would achieve racial equality and be accurate measures of a students knowledge? Or is this something we even need to measure?

after reading the article “Meritocracy 2.0: High-Stakes, Standardized Testing as a Racial Project of Neoliberal Multiculturalism” by Wayne Au prior to the episode.

This episode’s call to action: Raise our awareness of how biases in standardized testing affect our students in order to provide support for students who are affected by these biases and find ways to help them succeed.

Join us live for our episode 4 on Friday, March 19, at 5:30pm on the Lurie College YouTube channel. All of the recordings for this series are available at sjsu.edu/education/emancipatory-education-now