Alfie Kohn, author of eleven books on education, parenting and human behavior, signs his books following a community lecture, The

When a school’s state assessment score goes up, that’s cause for alarm, said Alfie Kohn, a former teacher, author and highly vocal opponent of the No Child Left Behind Act, during a community lecture Thursday night.

A response he’d like to hear from more parents is, “What did they have to sacrifice from my child’s education to increase scores?” Kohn said.

During a community lecture at the Kansas Union, he encouraged others to become more vocal with him and boycott state assessments. Kohn is a father of two as well as a national critic of standardized testing and has appeared on “Oprah,” in Time magazine and is the author of 11 books.

In a witty and energetic lecture, he began at the podium with a binder in hand that had a sticker on it, “Raise a child not a test score.” He presented four arguments against state testing during his lecture, “The Deadly Effects of ‘Tougher Standards’: Challenging High-Stakes Testing and Other Impediments to Learning.” He stressed that assessments “gut” schools of substantial programs and education and turn them into “a test-prep center.”

In conclusion, Kohn referred to the Civil Rights era as an inspiration to create change.

“We need to raise our voices,” he said. “Bad laws and unjust policies only continue with our complicity. If we agree to say no : then we can do what is right for our children.”

Though the lecture was competing with the vice presidential debate, the lecture attracted more than 200 people to the Woodruff Auditorium in the union. During a Q-and-A session, several teachers in the audience also spoke out against assessments.

Steve Bergin was there with his wife, both of whom are public school teachers, and their daughter, who is a student at Raintree Montessori School.

“He was shockingly accurate in terms of what exactly he had to say about rigor, curriculum and state assessments,” Bergin said.

Laura Shoffner, a teacher at Raintree, said she attended the lecture to gain another perspective into teaching because her private school doesn’t have standardized testing.

“It was an eye-opener of what Kansas public schools are like,” she said.