Mike Klonsky's Blog: Testing dust-up at CPS misses the point.

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Testing dust-up at CPS misses the point.

Testing dust-up at CPS misses the point.

SCHULER: “I think it would basically be naive to not mention the possibility of cheating or gaming,” Schuler said. “I think we’ve been pretty fair that it’s in the mix, we can’t quantify it. ... I think what we reported is very measured.”

BOARD MEMBER SOTELO:  “If you can’t [prove it], don’t make those assertions. Because now you are taking away the credit of all the hard work of all the teachers...”

Outgoing Chicago Public Schools IG Nicholas Schuler is probably well-intentioned as he hassles with the CPS board about possible test "cheating." He's sharp on issues of security but clueless about the real role of high-stakes, standardized testing. And like all teachers, principals, and CPS board members themselves, he's caught up in a toxic system that misuses tests as a weapon for tracking and sorting children and for penalizing schools and teachers for the students that they teach.

Testing madness has once again moved to center-stage in Chicago's school reform debate, driven in recent years by national policies like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Its corrosive and divisive effects are revealed in the current battle. The cost to cash-starved school systems like CPS, can't be measured in just payments to profit-hungry testing, security and textbook companies, but in teaching time wasted in test prep as well.

The Sun-Times reports:

Nearly every one of the board’s seven members peppered CPS Inspector General CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: Testing dust-up at CPS misses the point.