Episode 6: “We Need to Marginalize Standardized Testing” with Young Whan Choi

In an emotional Episode 6, Alcine and Shane get real with author and educator Young Whan Choi, witnessing his personal story of marginalization in school and how it took another Asian man–during college orientation–to help him see himself for the first time in American history. Together, they explore ways of being and leading in education that truly center students. Young Whan implores us to “marginalize” standardized testing, or at least push it to the periphery, as he offers a vision of authentic, community-based, performance assessments that demonstrate what students know and are able to do. He exposes the irony that, while many new leaders evoke the principle of being “student-centered”, students themselves are often painfully absent from professional learning agendas, except perhaps as an aggregated data point. And finally, Young Whan helps us rethink where knowledge lives and where power exists within the system.

 

For Further Learning

• • Get a copy of Street Data on Amazon, Corwin Press, or from a BIPOC-owned local bookstore.
  • Get a copy of Young Whan’s book, Sparks Into Fire: Revitalizing Teacher Practice Through Collective Learning at Teachers’ College Press.
  • Read Shane’s recent Ed Week article on standardized testing.

• Watch Awo Okaikor Aryee-Price, Wayne Au, Denisha Jones and Jesse Hagopian discuss the racist history of standardized testing and its impacts today in The Racist History of Standardized Testing