Today, April 8, MecklenburgACTS.org will be part of a nationwide push to convince the U.S. Senate to cut back on federal testing requirements.

Please take a few minutes to phone North Carolina senators Richard Burr (202-224-3154) and Thom Tillis (202-224-6342). Efforts from across the country have already helped to move  Senators in a positive direction, as seen in the bipartisan agreement announced yesterday. Let’s help push them further. (If you’re not living in North Carolina, you can find your senators’ contact information here).

We will be using the following message. Please feel free to use it, modify it, or say something entirely different.

We support changes to No Child Left Behind that will promote a saner and less intrusive approach to public school testing. We are pleased that to see that the agreement announced yesterday removes most high-stakes consequences from federally required tests. But we urge senators to continue to press for a switch from annual to grade span testing. There are too many tests, and it will take federal action to significantly reduce their numbers.

If you aren’t living in North Carolina, you can find your Senators’ phone numbers and Twitter handles here: https://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

For more information on the advantages of grade span testing, see A Better Approach to Tests, recently published in the Charlotte Observer. For more information about local efforts, e-mail info@mecklenburgacts.org.