NEA got it right with the Big Red Tee.

When I was in Philly this summer for the NEA convention, the tee shirt booth was selling red tee shirts with the slogan, “A child is more than a test score.”

I’m way past the age where I wear message tee shirts. Mike brought me back a “working class blogger” Teamster tee shirt form the Kos convention. But even that one, which is XXL and very cool in an anti-cool sort of way, fits a little to snug and so it sits on a chair in the bedroom. When a Teamster tee is too snug, that’s a sign.

But the NEA slogan must have touched a nerve. This week, both Rotherham and Williams go after it.

Rotherham is dismayed.

Does anyone seriously argue that children are not more than a test score? I’ve never heard anyone say that yet it’s being treated like a serious point of contention…If there is a lobby out there for this premise, I wish they would show themselves.

“Who says children are nothing more than a test,” he bellows. Like an angry father yelling, “who ate the last piece of pie?” Of course, it’s on his blog, so I have decided he is bellowing. Don’t really know for sure.

And now DFER’s Joe, “the artist former known as…” is still a hip phrase, Williams, who mourns the failure of the LAUSD to hand over decision making to unelected rich education hobbyists, slams the slogan too.

Oh boy. Didn’t they get the memo that children are much more than a test?

Where on earth would anyone get the idea that there is now a frenzy of testing, testing talk, test making, test taking, test scores, discussion of test scores, and analyses of test scores?

You would think the internet has been obsessive about test talk the last two days. Oh, wait. It has been.

Big gut be damned. Where did I put that shirt?