In this provocative talk, Jesse Hagopian calls for meaningful education and outlines some of the greatest obstacles to students of the testocracy.

Jesse Hagopian is best described by the name of his blog, I Am An Educator. He led the historic 2013 boycott of the MAP (Measure of Academic Progress) test at Garfield High in Seattle, an event that set the stage for the growing nationwide opposition to the inundation of standardized student testing from kindergarten through high school. Jesse teaches history and is the adviser to the Black Student Union at Garfield. He is an associate editor for the acclaimed Rethinking Schools magazine and editor of, and contributing author to, More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing. He speaks nationally on the topic and is a founding member of Social Equality Educators (SEE) and has received multiple awards for his initiatives in education In 2015, Jesse was awarded the “Cultural Freedom Fellowship” from the Lannan Foundation for his nationally recognized work in promoting critical thinking and opposing high-stakes testing.