Local News

Your guide to the latest news from around the Northwest

History teacher Jesse Hagopian discusses Garfield High School teachers’ decision to refuse to the give the MAP test to their students during a press conference in Seattle on Thursday. (Photo by Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)

Teachers at Seattle’s Garfield High School are refusing to give the district-required MAP tests to students, saying the tests are bad and waste time and resources.

They think it may be the first time that all teachers at a single school have decided to protest a test by boycotting it.

The Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) exams are given two to three times a year to ninth-grade students at Garfield, as well as to many students throughout the district. They cover reading and math, and the district uses them as one way to measure the progress of students and schools, and the performance of teachers. Garfield students were scheduled to take the tests this month.

In a news release, Kris McBride, Garfield’s academic dean and testing coordinator, said the test “produces specious results, and wreaks havoc on limited school resources” during the weeks the test is administered.

All the teachers scheduled to give the tests have decided not to do it, according to a prepared release. In December, most of the rest of the faculty and non-administrative staff reportedly voted to support them.