Illinois ESEA waiver request: More testing, please!!!
As if there wasn’t enough going on, tomorrow the Illinois State Board of Education will vote on an ESEA flexibility waiver application which will do little but add more tests to an already ridiculous state assessment system.Here are the comments I submitted to ISBE last week:
“Stop teaching to the test”
President Barack Obama, 2012 State of the Union Address
In their November 22, 2011, joint letter announcing Illinois’ intent to pursue a waiver from NCLB, ISBE Chair Gery Chico and State Superintendent Christopher Koch promised a “common sense accountability system” including “smart, nuanced tools” that will “demonstrate improvement and success in differentiated, appropriate and measurable ways” using “multiple measures.”
This all sounded great until we read the waiver proposal this week.
According to testing experts,* true multiple measures are the use of multiple indicators and sources of evidence of student learning, of varying kinds, gathered at multiple points in time, within and across subject areas. Multiple measures can include classroom, school, district and state tests; extended writing samples; tasks,
Parents begin vigil in Mayor Emanuel’s neighborhood
For Immediate ReleaseMedia Advisory for Monday, February 20
Contacts:
Jitu Brown, 773-317-6343
Ana Mercado, 312-498-6479
Parents Take a Their Concerns to the Mayor’s Neighborhood
Candlelight Vigil and March Delivers a Message: “Support Our Schools, Don’t Close Them!”
CHICAGO—Parents and community supporters will hold a candlelight vigil this afternoon in Lake View to protest planned school closures. Sixteen public schools are currently slated for closure and “turnaround.”
Lake View was chosen as the location for the silent vigil because it is the Mayor’s neighborhood. The Mayor has made decisions that impact community schools without visiting the schools or talking with parents. Since the Mayor has failed to show up in their communities, the parents are going to his neighborhood to deliver their message: “Support Our Schools, Don’t Close Them!”
Parents of children attending these schools are concerned because the closings were planned without their input, and because schools that have been closed and put through the turnaround process have shown little if any improvement, despite receiving millions of dollars in funding.
WHAT:
A candlelight vigil featuring parents and students speaking out to keep their schools
WHERE:
Lake View High School, 4015 North Ashland Avenue
WHEN:
TODAY, Monday, February 20
4:00 p.m.
WHO:
Parents, students and a broad coalition of community supporters, including Action Now, Albany Park Neighborhood Council, Blocks Together, Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, Logan Square Neighborhood Association, and others
WHY:
To demand that the Mayor and the Board of Education listen to parents, and Support Our Schools Instead of Closing Them. To call on CPS to work in partnership with school communities, and to invest in real school improvement plans that respect the parents and educators in the schools.
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