Parents support Saucedo and Drummond teachers’ test boycott
Parents United for Responsible Education and the parent group More Than a Score strongly support the teachers at Chicago’s Saucedo, Drummond, and any other Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Illinois teachers who are refusing to administer the Illinois Standards Achievement Test to their students beginning on Monday, March 3. The hundreds of parents represented by PURE and MTAS oppose the misuse a
Test officials getting testier about opting out
Efforts by school testing folks to stop the opt out steamroller are getting desperate. Now they are threatening everything from teacher firings to school closure. It’s almost as if they are afraid that their test-based house of cards is about to collapse…Here’s an e-mail sent to More Than a Score’s Julie Fain by Didi Schwartz, head of assessment at CPS, and our responses (written by Cassie Creswell and added in bold below).
From: “Swartz, Claudinette” <cmswartz@cps.edu>
Date: February 27, 2014 at 11:46:13 AM CST
To: Julie Fain <juliemfain@gmail.com>
Subject: ISAT opt out
Hi Julie,
I wanted to reach out on the opt out issue because I’m concerned that there are repercussions from the State that teachers and parents may not be aware of. We’ve just sent something to principals and I want to make sure you guys are clear too.
What we’ve heard from ISBE is that because ISAT is required by both federal (NCLB) and state law (IL School Code), it’s possible that schools could lose federal funding with low testing percentages. We’re still trying to nail down with ISBE exactly how this will be determined, but this is something that would be reviewed by the federal Dept. of Ed.
There is no evidence that the federal government will limit Title I funding due to testing opt outs. If ISBE or US Ed has evidence of this ever happening anywhere or under consideration, please have them produce it.