Alto al SIMCE : the campaign against standardized testing in Chile

Abstract

This article describes the Alto al SIMCE (Stop SIMCE) campaign which aims to end the national standardized tests in Chile. In the context of the mobilizations for education in Chile, this campaign was successful in publicly and massively questioning the most used evaluative instrument in one of the most neoliberal educational systems in the world. The strategy of this action group was characterized by a strong criticism of the negative consequences of the test. It also intensively used digital social networks to break the information siege in the country. Our analysis states that Alto al SIMCE took advantage of contingency and generated alliances with the student movement in order to achieve government and media recognition. In this sense, the campaign made visible the strength of the resistance against the current educational system in the country, where new social media played a fundamental role, re-framing the discussion about the quality of education. However, the lack of human and economic resources prevented the development of Alto al SIMCE into a more active media campaign, capable of ending the SIMCE test.