The Anti-Standardized Testing Movement Claims a Victory in Chicago

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17605/anti_standardized_testing_chicago

In a move seen by some activists as a concession to Chicago’s strong anti-testing movement, Chicago Public Schools won’t administer the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), a test required by federal mandate as part of the new Common Core curriculum. Instead, the district will test only 10 percent of its 664 schools.

Parents and teachers led a boycott of the ISAT, the precursor to the PARCC, back in February 2014. Months of organizing culminated in students at more than 60 schools opting out of the test and teachers at two schools refusing to administer it.

The reason, according to CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett’s testimony at a Board of Education meeting, was that the district does not have enough computers for all students to take the online test. Byrd-Bennett also noted that she wasn’t clear on PARCC’s benefits for students and voiced concerns about over-testing.

But the decision puts CPS in a difficult situation as federal education officials have ramped up their pressure on the district to administer the test. The Department of Education is threatening to withhold $1.2 billion in federal funding—essentially 84 percent of federal education funding on offer—from the perpetually cash-strapped state if school districts do not administer the full test, according to a previously unpublicized letter from Department of Education officials published in full by Crain’s Chicago. CPS had previously asked both the state and federal education department’s for a waiver from administering the PARCC. Both bodies rejected it.