David Safier

The anti-test protest movement

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by David Safier

It's great to see this AP story on the Star front page: More parents opting kids out of standardized tests. Not because it's new news. Grumblings about our obsession with standardized testing has been growing for awhile now, spreading from progressive educators to increasing numbers of teachers and more recently to parents. It's great because the Star considers it front page news, and the AP story has been picked up by papers and other media outlets across the country. It's the first national MSM acknowledgement of the growing anti-testing trend I've seen, meaning the movement is growing larger and louder.

The opt-out movement, as it is called, is small but growing. It has been brewing for several years via word of mouth and social media, especially through Facebook. The "Long Island opt-out info" Facebook page has more than 9,200 members . . . In Washington, D.C., a group of parents and students protested outside the Department of Education. Students and teachers at a Seattle high school boycotted a standardized test, leading the district superintendent to declare that city high schools have the choice to deem it optional. In Oregon, students organized a campaign persuading their peers to opt out of tests, and a group of students in Providence, R.I., dressed like zombies and marched in front of the State House to protest a requirement that students must achieve a minimum score on a state test in order to graduate.

An Obamacare cost calculator

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by David Safier

Want to know how much you, or anyone else, will pay for Obamacare premiums? Here's a great calculator from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been putting together lots of terrific information about how the new health care system will work. The actual cost of the health care is approximate because it will vary state by state, but the government subsidy a person or a family can get should be pretty accurate.

Say you're a family of 4, with two 30-something non-smoking adults and two kids, and you make $30,000 a year. If you're in Arizona or some other state that expanded Medicaid coverage (Thank you, Governor Brewer), you're covered. Without the Medicaid expansion, you could still get the lowest coverage, the Bronze plan, for free. The next level, the Silver plan, would cost about $600 a year, or $50 a month. Either way, you can't be denied for preexisting condidtions. That's as opposed to an estimated cost of $10,829 without the subsidy — assuming you have no preexisting conditions that would make it impossible to get coverage. If the same family makes $40,000 a year, the Silver plan would run about $2,000 — that's $167 per month — or you could get the Bronze plan for $112 per year, or just under $10 a month.

Shameless self promotion

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by David Safier As of today's issue, I'll be writing a more-or-less-monthly column in the Tucson Weekly on education. Today's column: Tom Horne and John Huppenthal's war with TUSD continues, to the detriment of Tucson students. The basic premise: it's time for Huppenthal to simply let TUSD be TUSD and go about the important business … Read more