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By Sophie Quinton | National Journal

On a Monday morning in March, several hundred Albuquerque (New Mexico) High School students walked out of their first period classes and onto the grounds in front of school. Despite warnings from school leaders that they could lose the chance to walk in graduation ceremonies by participating in the protest, students chanted slogans and held up handmade signs with messages like, “We are not defined by test scores” and “We have a say in our education.”

They were protesting new state tests aligned to the Common Core academic standards. “This test is infringing on our rights,” says Maya Quinones, a senior and one of the protest organizers. Most of the students at Albuquerque High School are Hispanic and comes from low-income families.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan famously singled out “white suburban moms” for their opposition to the Common Core and the tests associated with it. But many low-income, minority communities aren’t sold on the new standards, either. Skepticism in those communities challenges a key argument for why such standardized tests exist in the first place.

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