Letter to the Editor; Punitive testing undermines education and democracy

To the Editor,

Years ago, about 15 classroom teachers, stakeholders and I were members of a state Collection of Evidence committee recommending a cut score for students’ writing.

Collection of Evidence is the alternative portfolio “testing” for those who failed the state’s 10th-grade test [then WASL, now HSPE]. The WASL writing cut score was 17.

We finally realized that a higher cut score would discriminate against students who spoke a different language, came from a culture with different expectations about “performance,” or lacked the opportunities to be as familiar with the intricacies of o...