A recent incident at International High School at Prospect Heights, covered in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, in which teachers at the school refused to administer a city-mandated writing test could be a sign of things to come.

Thirty teachers at the school signed their names to a letter that listed objections to the test and asked Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina to allow teacher-based assessments as a replacement. The teachers claim that the students, many of whom hail from other countries and are just learning English, struggled with the test and found it too difficult.

The wonder is not that this has happened. The wonder is that it didn’t happen sooner, and that it hasn’t happened in more places. At International High School, the trigger was a test that was not appropriate for foreign-born students who were in the process of learning English. At other schools, the trigger might be different.

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