One of the most popular WiFi Wednesday posts has been the Instagram post Subversive.Thread: Guide to Coded Language in Education. The Guide to Coded Language in Education, Vol 2 was published recently and is available below. Check out the post and the new slides below!
A few days ago both the SAT and ACT announced that if schools do not resume session by the fall and test centers are unable to open they would offer take-home tests. Aside from the fact that these new tests are untested themselves, take-home tests would only exacerbate the ableist, classist, and racist hierarchies standardized testing exists to enforce.
Not every student will have a computer at home to take the test online. Not every student will have internet access. Not every student will have a private or quiet place. And, just like before, we know not every student will have equitable resources to prepare.
This move by College Board really amounts to a cash grab that, yet again, will hurt poor BI&POC students most. But College Board doesn’t really care about students as much as it cares about money. With all the turmoil students and families are already navigating, standardized testing should be opposed at every level. We do not need the SAT or ACT now or ever. Like all standardized testing, its roots lie in eugenicist ideas of intelligence. Both the SAT and ACT are tools of a colonial education system that should be abolished.
For students, educators, and parents, this crisis is a time to push back, to say no, and to defend students’ and families’ material needs. In that spirit we’d like to offer Vol. II of “Our Guide to Coded Language in Education.” In your faculty and staff meetings, listen for this language and be ready to name oppression for what it is.
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