Epiphany!: What if There's a Market for Ed-Reform Resistance When it Comes to Recruiting Teachers?

My twitter feed is abuzz with education reform news. Most of those I follow are connected to teaching in some way, and twitter has become my go-to resource for news and advocacy regarding the latest exigencies in public K12 education.

Today, a couple of links lead to a story about a Seattle, WA, high school with a faculty which has elected not to administer the Common Core State Standards SBAC test to 11-graders.

According to the Seattle Education blog,  "the Nathan Hale High School Senate, which functions as the Building Leadership Team typically made up of teachers, parents, staff and students, voted nearly unanimously not to administer the SBAC tests to 11th graders this year."

See why *here*.

Nathan Hale HS joins fellow Seattle-area school Garfield High in having a faculty willing to take a strong stance against useless-if-not-detrimental standardized testing. Truth in American Education *reports* last year GHS refused to administer the MAP test. 

Upon reading the news, I thought, "If I'm a young teacher looking for strong leadership and progressive bravery, or if I'm an established teacher looking for a new gig, Nathan Hale High School just moved to the top of my list of places to which to send applications!" 


What if..............

What if I'm not alone in those thoughts? What if there is a tangible benefit, beyond all the obvious ones, to be reaped from taking a stand against bad reform measures and testing? I mean in terms of marketing? If school district higher-ups are serious about finding the best teachers for their kids and realize the best teachers probably have the best interests of students in mind, and that that means resisting the same sorts of things the faculty already knows to resist, why don't they market their campuses as places where young teachers can start out with a strong voice an widespread support resisting current-era reform efforts? Where teachers in other schools -- in other states, even -- which are buying in to over-testing and privatizing standards can move and feel great about what they're doing every day?


If more schools follow the leads of Hale and Garfield and the word gets out, will those schools see an increase in interest from potential employers? If so, and other administrators take note, could resisting education reform measures we know aren't worthy of our kids become a means for schools to recruit teachers?


Wouldn't that be something....?