When parents in Palm Beach County, Florida became unhappy with a new school district testing initiative called “embedded assessments” and other changes to the curriculum, they organized a potent online resistance. “They started with e-mails,” reports the Sun-Sentinel newspaper. “Then they created Facebook pages. Then came a website.”
“The Internet is a common denominator for most people,” says parent Debbie Block. Her Facebook page “Testing is not Teaching!” quickly amassed more than 8,000 fans. “Facebook has allowed a purely grassroots movement to grow and reach people who live in a vast community in an extremely short period of time,” she tells the paper.
And it seems to be having an impact. Good for them.
