Chicago schools sued for flunking minorities
Chicago’s policy of flunking third-, sixth- and eighth-grade students who do poorly on state exams disproportionately harms black and Latino students, charges Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE) which has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
Students who are held back get discouraged and drop out, said Julie Woestehoff, executive director of PURE.
The threat of retention has pushed low-achieving students to work harder to raise achievement, said Elaine Allensworth, chief research officer at the University of Chicago‘s Consortium on Chicago School Research. But there is a down side.
“We saw and still see students held back two or three years and entering high school really old,”