Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Friday that CPS boss Barbara Byrd-Bennett “made the right call” in warning teachers of the repercussions of refusing to administer an achievement test next week. | DNAInfo/Ted Cox
By Ted Cox @tedcoxchicago| Originally Published at DNA Info. February 28, 2014
EDGEWATER — The mayor backed Chicago Public Schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett Friday in her hard-line warning to teachers about administering a statewide test.
“She made the right call,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Friday at an Edgewater news conference. “The only person who can pull somebody out is not a teacher, but a parent.”
The mayor insisted that, under his administration and CPS Chief Executive Officer Byrd-Bennett, “We reduced the amount of tests given.”
He said the Illinois Standards Achievement Test, slated to begin next week at CPS schools, was mandated by the state, “so you have to follow through.”
The ISATs, as they’re commonly called, are being phased out and are no longer being used in promotions,