New CPS promotion policy more of the same
Over the past few days, CPS has been putting on dog and pony shows for parents and others about the “new” student promotion policy.Parents were not given copies of the actual policy either ahead of time or at the presentation. Instead, they had to squint at slides in a powerpoint presentation showing a before (2013) and after parent guide outlining the basics of the policy changes, which amount to little more than swapping out one high-stakes nationally-normed standardized test for another, as they have done a few times over the life of this failed program.
In today’s Tribune, reporter Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah quotes CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett saying, “This current policy that we have has become outdated. The new policy takes a much more balanced approached to measuring student success.”
Not so. Here’s my quote from the story:
Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible Education, has long argued that the district’s policy on holding students back is too heavily based on assessment tests. She does not support the new policy, which continues to be based largely on test scores and, she said, is designed to save the expense of putting kids through summer school.
Woestehoff said summer school and holding students back are expensive propositions for the district. “CPS is paying for summer school, and in addition it’s paying for an