Earlier, Chicago Superintendent Barbara Byrd-Bennett said the city schools were not ready to give the PARCC test. She planned to give the test to only 10% of students. Federal and state pressure was applied, and the city caved to threats. It’s not about what’s best for children. It is power politics, and Arne Duncan’s demand that no child go untested.
NEWS RELEASE
IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Stephanie Gadlin
March 2, 2015 312-329-6250
CTU Statement on Chicago Public Schools’ Decision to Cower to Federal Threats and Administer PARCC Assessment
CHICAGO—The Chicago Teachers Union is extremely disappointed in the decision of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s handpicked Chicago Board of Education to administer the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) throughout the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) district in the wake of intimidation by the Illinois State Board of Education and U.S. Department of Education. The district’s choice to back down from state and federal threats to withhold education funding if the PARCC was not administered throughout CPS allows for continued policy measures to disrupt the lives of students, handcuffs classroom educators and holds the sword of disinvestment over children and communities who need resources the most.
“This has the potential to blow up and be a tremendous failure, because CPS itself has said the district may not be able to handle a proper rollout at this time due to technical issues and frustration among students, teachers and administration over administering the test properly,” said CTU President Karen Lewis. “But instead of understanding those issues, the state and the feds decided to threaten to withhold resources from a district that’s one of the most poorly resourced in the nation.”
By changing course on a previous decision to limit the PARCC to just 10 percent of CPS schools students, the district will continue to burden elementary school students with the inhumane pressure of over-testing, valuable time away from classroom instruction. A number of CPS teachers who have taken the sample PARCC test have stated that the assessment is inappropriate for the target 3rd through 8th grades, and is coyly designed for students to fail.
The district’s decision to administer the PARCC test comes nearly a year to the day after the boycott of the now-defunct Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) by teachers at Maria Saucedo Scholastic Academy on March 3, 2014.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Disappointing, but predictable. Byrd-Bennett appeared, for the first time ever, to be standing up to the rephormers just when her boss was in the thick of re-election. But of course Rahm can’t really defy Obama et al. So they’re making it look like a well, hey, we tried, but what can we do, our hands are tied sort of thing. Going into the run-off, Rahm can, again, pretend to be a man of the people while not losing any funding. Nice tightrope act.
It’s time to stop backing down. We can not compromise or commiserate with the likes of Rahm, the feds, and neocons on state school boards. It’s time to stand up. We will be risking much. But how will anything change if we keep being “disappointed?” We need to be outraged. City and state wide. Nationally. This is class warfare. Just as the old dynasties of China. As Zhao said, the last thing we want is to become more like China. The rentier class will consume all and everyone so that their vision of schooling for corporate jobs becomes cast in concrete
Concrete can be taken down. Rise up, or die. The CTU and public schools in Chicago as in other cities are coming to have less and less to lose.
How do we win a war that is paid for by deep pockets. They elect the people who run the country. Their shadow obscures truth about everything, but eduction is its biggest victim, because the public is clueless about what it takes for the human brain to learn.
http://billmoyers.com/2014/09/22/5-signs-dark-money-apocalypse-upon-us/?utm_source=General+Interest&utm_campaign=94370722aa-Midweek_0924149_24_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4ebbe6839f-94370722aa-168347829
h
ttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/opinion/sunday/the-growing-shadow-of-political-money.html?emc=edit_th_20150125&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=50637717&_r=0
It takes real courage to oppose these negative laws
but
progress has been made when that courage has been applied. “Profiles in Courage’ stated SOME of them and we are all recipients of those who have come before us to promote justice against bad laws. No easy matter. No quick easy answers as to how, when, where oppose them.
Teachers are expected to follow the law. Some of us have suffered when we dared stand up and speak out but at least we can look in the mirror.
I will not speak against those who fail to do the right thing
but
I honor those who do:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
One man asks what is right
the other what is to come
AND that is the difference between the free man and the slave.
Something isn’t adding up here. Our state had to submit names of students back in December to PARCC along with how many paper vs. technology versions of the test. If Chicago is giving the PARCC test this year, and copies of the test are already in schools for kids to take, it would have been in the works for quite a while. Sounds like Rahm wanted to appear supportive of public education prior to the primary when all along all Chicago Public School kids were slated to take the test. Guess the best laid plans don’t always work out (aka the election runoff he’s now in and time to expose this deception). Hope his opponent takes advantage of this situation and investigates.
It will be interesting to see if any comparisons can be made between those who take the paper test and those who do it online. In the background, I just heard on the radio that only the paper test will be given to younger students. Time will tell.
Folding like a trapper keeper! Stop paying these Unions! It is your hard earned money and they are obviously not representing the best interests of students and teachers. It is time for them to start earning their dues plain and simple.
It wasn’t the union that folded, it was the CPS supe.
Sorry Duane I misread the title of the article.
The CTU is the point on the sharp end of the spear when it comes to standing up for the best interests of our students here, no one can hold a candle to them. FYI, the teachers of the elite private school Rahm sends his own kids to supported the CTU’s policy and educational positions during the strike that Rahm precipitated. I did find your baseless cookie cutter smear of the union mildly amusing.
Did anyone see Campbell Brown on msnbc’s Morning Joe this morning? I didn’t get to see it but was wondering if they had anyone to challenge her talking points.
They’re celebrating the start of The Testing Season! 🙂
We should count how many times they said “accountable”
NBC is just awful. I watched Education Nation a couple of years ago and I had to turn it off when they had the governors lined up against the backdrop of a for-profit college banner.
It was appalling on so many levels. They kept showing the celebrity politicians in the audience, all nodding in agreement like bobbleheads.
I don’t think they should show it to children. They’ll give up before they’re old enough to vote 🙂
“NBC is awful.”
Well, it is the home of Brian “I was shot down in Iraq and then abducted by aliens ” Williams
Maybe the students walking out of the tests in New Mexico will become the roll models for the rest of the nation.
What kind of country do we live in when the almighty dollar means everything and the future of our children can be sold?
The teachers’ unions in this country should issue a directive to all teachers to boycott the PARCC. If no one gave the test, the PARCC issue would be solved.
Before the Fair Labor Standards Act, the future of children could be sold in the United States.
“By 1810, about 2 million school-age children were working 50- to 70-hour weeks. Most came from poor families. When parents could not support their children, they sometimes turned them over to a mill or factory owner. One glass factory in Massachusetts was fenced with barbed wire ‘to keep the young imps inside.’ These were boys under 12 who carried loads of hot glass all night for a wage of 40 cents to $1.10 per night. …
“in 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. It fixed minimum ages of 16 for work during school hours, 14 for certain jobs after school, and 18 for dangerous work. Today all the states and the U.S. government have laws regulating child labor. These laws have cured the worst evils of children working in factories.”
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/history-child-labor
Let’s not forget that in 1900, when President Teddy Roosevelt ushered in the progressive era, that 40% of Americans lived in poverty, less than 7% graduated on time from high school and even fewer from college.
What a good point.
Our public schools provided a road to opportunity for those who cannot afford private schools. Public education is one of those things that define ‘common good’ in the Constitution that the oligarchs are re-writing.
I cannot believe what is happening before my eyes.
Well, this is S—CAGO.
A view from the front lines here. As explained above, CPS is not remotely ready to administer the CCRAP test in the manner envisioned by the testocracy, and BBB knows it. The IT infrastructure in a lot of CPS schools isn’t up to the challenge and schools are not well prepared either. While there will be students who refuse, those who end up taking the test will also end up doing so in the service of the opt out movement since the system can’t handle the test and therefore will implode. Parents will also not be happy when they hear about how much the test sucks from their kids and will truly be livid when they are later asked for more money for IT infrastructure when so many basic needs of the schools remain unmet. FYI, Mr. Meeks, recently appointed chairman of the ISBE by our new Koch/ALEC friendly governor is completely unqualified for the job. His appointment was a purely political move to co opt ministers and citizens in the African American community. Meeks is a opportunist, a sell out. At the end of the day, this is also about our anti union, right to work pushing governor taking a hard line against the CTU on behalf of the rest of the oligarchy including so called reformers.
On a different topic, it’s interesting to note that both our .1% Replutocrat governor and our cookie cutter Replutocrat senator Mark Kirk have endorsed Rahm for mayor. Corporate suits circling the wagons. Around us.