The Seventh Stage of SBA Grieving: Acceptance?

If my poor memory serves me correctly, sometime late last week I typed the following into the little "Blogger" WYSIWYG word processor:

Well, here's a newsflash to SBA overlords: we don't care about the SBAs. We really don't.

For those not initiated into Edunyms (educational acronyms), "SBA" stands for Standards-Based Assessment, which is itself a Eduphemism (educational euphemism) for "high-stakes testing" which is another Eduphemism for the "test scores that show up in the newspaper and determine whether a school has to do 'Continuous Improvement' crap", which is another Eduphemism wrapped in an Edunyms, wrapped in an enigma.

But I digress.

Average folks, who don't obsess over SBAs, newspaper accounts of SBA scores and just want to know which school they should send their Johnny or Jenny might find it a little provocative for a paid public school teacher to say:

Well, here's a newsflash to SBA overlords: we don't care about the SBAs. We really don't.

Likewise, a slighly-to-greatly more high-paid public school administrator might not like the idea that their employees are saying things like:

Well, here's a newsflash to SBA overlords: we don't care about the SBAs. We really don't.

And I can understand that from both the concerned parent and concerned administrator angles. I admit it's a tad bit provocative for a teacher to write:

Well, here's a newsflash to SBA overlords: we don't care about the SBAs. We really don't.

I also admit that I tend to think of the term "provocative" as a value-positive term, but that's the subject for another blogpost. My interest this early morning is asking a question to all those in public education, from Johnny and Jenny, to concerned parent, to teachers provocative and unprovocative alike, to concerned administrator.

What the Hell are those opposed to how "assessment" is now implemented, enforced, funded, and reported supposed to do?

Note: I"m not saying kids shouldn't be held to rigorous academic standards. Quite the opposite. What I'm saying is that those standards are being perversely assessed.

Right now we have a situation where a large majority of those practicing public education oppose something, but are afraid to really say anything for fear of retribution. Oh, they'll complain and rant plenty in the privacy of a informal teacher confab in the halls between classes, maybe even rant a bit at a unrecorded staff meeting. But anything past this, and/or, frankly, the occasional "anonymous" comment to some silly blog is considered too dangerous.

Hmm...

I'm afraid I don't really have the time this morning to even begin to answer the "What the Hell" question, and rather doubt I'm smart enough to ever come up with an answer. Honestly, the question seems rhetorical to me in this environment. What I'd really like to see is somebody out there (yes, one of the three people reading this here thing) throw me a compelling answer to the "What the Hell" question.

Hint: The answer shouldn't simply contain the phrase "get the Union involved", for reasons that are, hopefully, painfully obvious.

The only options I'm seeing right now are: 1. Keep quiet and eventually it will all go away. This is, by far, the majority position; 2. Meaninglessly complain about it in private hallway discussion and at noisy staff meeting (oh, and in useless blogposting).

I'd like to add a third option:: Engage in the process and make the changes happen. But where does one engage, when just about everyone is trying to keep quiet, waiting for it all to go away?