Zombies March Against Education Deform Efforts

The Providence Student Union’s zombie march, a planned protest from Burnside Park to the State House against standardized testing, has gone national.

Diane Ravitch, the most widely read and respected blogger on the ed reform debunking beat, picked up the item today and mentions that RI Ed. Commissioner Gist probably won’t be able to make it, writing:

…Deborah Gist may not be there, as she is participating in a conference at the conservative think-tank American Enterprise Institute in DC on Tuesday with Michelle Rhee about “cage-busting leadership.“

The students are the ones in the cage.

They would like to bust out of the cage created by NCLB and Race to the Top.  RI won RTTT funding to make the cage stronger.

The march is Wednesday at 4 pm. Here’s the press release that went out this morning:

“ZOMBIES” MARCH ON DEPT. OF EDUCATION TO PROTEST HIGH-STAKES TESTING

WHAT: Members of the Providence Student Union and other high school students dress as zombies and march from Burnside Park to RIDE, where they will dramatically demonstrate the deathly serious impact that the state’s new high-stakes testing graduation requirement may have on youth in Rhode Island by staging a “die-in.” 

DATE: Wednesday, February 13^th

TIME / PLACE:   4:00 p.m. “zombie march” begins at Burnside Park in Providence

4:20 p.m. zombies demonstrate outside of RIDE (on the Westminster Street-side of the Shepard Building)