MEDIA WATCH: Now that the PARCC is being replaced by the SAT and the ACT (and EPAS) by the SAT, how many reporters are reporting how many sure-fire testing programs have been utilized by CPS since corporate reform began with Paul Vallas nearly 30 years ago?
Paul G. Vallas assured everyone that Chicago's high-stakes testing and so-called "accountability" programs were the best ever. Until the tests were changed -- more than once. Vallas sued Substance for a million dollars when we exposed the expensive and rotten CASE testing program he had put into place. Rather than bring the CASE case to a jury trial (where the evidence would have shown that testing experts long warned that CASE was a bad testing program), the Chicago Board of Education dropped its "damages" claims against Substance and editor George Schmidt.It's actually an old story -- unless Chicago's corporate press is afflicted with amnesia. Which is apparently is, even though the Tribune reporter covering this particular story knows better of the history. But, here we go AGAIN! Once again, Illinois (and eventually Chicago) is replacing the "old" testing program with a "new" one. Once again, this new one is sure to do the job the old one didn't really do -- sort of maybe. But before anyone joins Chicago's two daily newspapers in this latest round of silly cheerleading for the latest round of high stakes testing for Chicago (and Illinois) students (and high stakes consequences for Chicago teachers and principals and schools), let's take this silly story all the way back to the TAP and ITBS -- to the dawn of high-stakes testing "accountability". Everyone of course remembers them: the Tests of Achievement and Proficiency (TAP) for high schools and the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) for elementary schools.
This whole thing began when Bill Clinton was President of the United States. And we'd be missing some of the history if we didn't mention that Clinton praised Chicago's corporate "reform" in a couple of State of the Union addresses (before he was warned that some of the Chicago "data" were, to say the least, "controversial")...
The TAP and ISAT were the high stakes testings that we utilized in Chicago for a few years in the late 1990s to judge teachers, principals, schools and (some years) the children (who had to go to summer school or be held back if they "failed"). The ITBS and TAP were praised as giving all the "accountability" answers they could until they couldn't any more. And then they were replace by the IGAP (when was that precisely?) and the Prairie State (PSAE) which for a time included the ACT (and of course utilized the EPAS formula for showing whether high school kids were supposedly "on track"...).
But then the PSAE disappeared, and then we got the PARCC, which was utilized in conjunction with the ACT until, now, the PARCC (and the ACT will be disappeared). But now that we all finally have "Common Core" with which the new testing programs are supposedly "aligned" well then, everything will be just fine and we will still know how well schools and teachers and kids are doing, just like we all know on July 12, 2016, who won the Home Run Derby because, after all, schools and teachers must be rated just like baseball teams and players because...
Why precisely?
Well, that's a question that's been around since Paul Vallas, who had no "business experience" but became the first "Chief Executive Officer" of Chicago's newly redesigned "School Reform Board of Trustees." Vallas served under that business genius, political lawyer Gery Chico (who had also gotten all his "business" experience at City Hall with Vallas). Chicago was the President of the "Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees" during those first early years of corporate school reform, Chicago-style.
That was from 1995 through 2001, when then Mayor Richard M. Daley dumped Vallas (and Chico) for another "business" leader (who had never been in business) Hyde Park basketball guy Arne Duncan. Duncan had returned to Chicago after playing professional basketball in Australia. Duncan's Hyde Park clout made his chief of the city's school system, even though he had as little actual teaching and school experience as his predecessor Paul Vallas (and less political experience). But Duncan's City Hall clout gave him the power to run the nation's third largest school system. Why? The main qualification for a school executive, then and now, was the ability to read the "bottom line" on a spreadsheet listing test scores and then talk on and on and on about "accountability."
Prior to his appointment as "Chief Executive Officer" of Chicago's public schools, Ron Huberman has worked as a Chicago police officer, and then as head of the city's emergency call in system. His qualification to head the nation's third largest school system was that he could repeat the mantras of "standards and accountability" followed by America's corporate school reformers. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.Duncan was followed into the CEO spot by former cop Ron Huberman...
And of course Huberman had the surest surefire method of evaluating teachers, schools and children and principals using -- what tests were utilized then, precisely?
Well, don't worry about it. Because it was never about whether those tests were any good. The main thing the reporters and media owners wanted was some way to measure, rank and sort schools from "best" to "worst" and fire the "worst" teachers as measured that way, not matter which fucking way it was.
You see, dear and gentle readers, we have had more than a dozen high stakes testing programs since corporate reform took over in Chicago in 1995, and as many "Chief Executive Officer" people to head the schools. And everyone has known during all those years of ITBS, TAP, IGAP, ISAT, Prairie State, ACT, EPAS, SAT, and now -- WTF?
Not one of those tests has ever (EVER!) actually measured anything meaningful about how well a school was doing. What all of those tests have always measured, and continue to measure, is socio-economic realities: viz., how many kids in the school are living in poverty. Period. Schools with large numbers of kids in poverty scored "low" on the ITBS, and on the IGAP, and then on the ISAT, and after that on EPAS, etc., etc., etc. And every principal or administrator or editorial writer who wrote about "failing schools" was defrauding the people -- or worse.
And so, on July 11 and July 12, 2016, the Chicago media are reporting, once again, that Chicago (and Illinois, who only began to suffer this stuff really when the 21st Century began) will finally has THE TEST the will provide THE PUBLIC with a true picture of...
Like Paul Vallas, Ron Huberman privatized his CPS experience after he left the nation's third largest school system. The above graphic, created by the Chicago Sun-Times, shows Huberman's corporate scams, which continue.How many of our public schools are "failing." Welcome to 2016, which could have been 2006 or 1996. This game is far from over, but let's at least begin to admit that history matters, and in these cases we have to pay attention to those histories that remind us just how fraudulent these stories have always been.
So here are two of them, from Chicago's Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune...
SUN TIMES.....
Lauren FitzPatrick. http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/illinois-high-schools-replacing-parcc-with-sat/
Illinois is tossing the controversial PARCC standardized test this year for its high schoolers, relying instead on a redesigned SAT, the Illinois State Board of Education announced Monday.
The departure from the test, given in the last two years to high schoolers in certain classes plus all public school students in grades three through eight, is being touted as cutting back on standardized testing while providing equitable access to a college entrance exam required for admissions applications. ISBE said the decision was formed by conversations with parents, administrators, unions and others.
PARCC — the Partnership for the Achievement of Readiness for College and Careers — is supposed to measure college readiness with in-depth analytical questions, but in Chicago alone, about 10 percent of eligible students sat it out last year.
So ISBE will now pay every public high school junior to take the College Board’s SAT along with its writing component in the spring, and the SAT will count for Illinois’ annual test required by the federal government. Third- through eighth-graders will still take PARCC in the spring.
“District and school administrators overwhelmingly agree with ISBE that every high school junior should have access to a college entrance exam, a policy that promotes equity and access and that provides each and every student with greater opportunities in higher education,” State Supt. Tony Smith said in a press release.
ISBE did not say how much money was at stake with the changes, and the press office did not respond to emails. When it started testing 1 million students in 2014, Illinois spent abut $34 million on PARCC, about $4.5 million of that for high school students enrolled in certain math and English courses, according to ISBE.
Ben Boer, deputy director of the education policy group Advance Illinois, said the decision made sense in the short term because the new federal law governing education requires states to test high schoolers in the same grade — and PARCC was tied to courses rather than to a single year.
“They had to make a short-term decision on what to use for assessment and accountability in the coming year,” Boer said.
The announcement comes as Chicago Public Schools is moving closer to relying on PARCC to rate its hundreds of elementary schools and their teachers, and as Chicago’s juniors are about to join their colleagues in the rest of the state to take SAT instead of the ACT. CPS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
PARCC was first given in Illinois two years ago, shortly after the state began teaching Common Core standards. That means next year’s juniors were not learning those standards for the bulk of their elementary school years.
TRIBUNE STORY (FRONT PAGE) JULY 12, 2016...
Illinois ends much-debated PARCC test for high school students
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-parcc-test-high-school-met-20160711-story.html
Diane RadoContact Reporter
Chicago Tribune
Illinois is ditching the controversial state PARCCexam for high school students, instead giving 11th-graders a state-paid SAT college entrance exam next spring.
The announcement from the Illinois State Board of Education on Monday comes after only two administrations of PARCC, in the spring of 2015 and 2016, following dismal test scores and thousands of students skipping the exams.
Still, third- through eighth-graders will continue taking the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers in reading and math, exams designed to prepare students for college and work. The state tests have drawn opposition from families who questioned the amount of testing at school — part of a national movement that has prompted some states to stop using the PARCC exams, which are based on Common Core standards.
At the high school level, the PARCC exams took away from key instruction time, school administrators said, as tests piled up in the spring, including Advanced Placement exams for honors-level students and a college entrance exam in many districts.
Against that backdrop, some students didn't seem to take PARCC seriously.
"There was no element of skin in the game for the kids — they didn't know why they had to take the exam," said Argo Community High School District 217 Superintendent Kevin O'Mara, president of the High School District Organization of Illinois.
"It threw off our whole spring calendar."
For many years in the past, the state gave a free and popular ACT college entrance exam to roughly 140,000 high school juniors. ACT's contract expired, and there was no state-paid college entrance exam for students in spring 2016, although some districts paid for it on their own. ISBE chose this past school year to switch to the SAT, which O'Mara said is expected to be to given in April 2017.
The recently revamped SAT includes reading, math, and writing and language tests, as well as an optional essay. The state has paid for juniors to take a separate writing test in the past, while taking the ACT, and the state expects to do so again in the SAT spring testing.
"District and school administrators overwhelmingly agree with ISBE that every high school junior should have access to a college entrance exam, a policy that promotes equity and access and that provides each and every student with greater opportunities in higher education," state Superintendent of Education Tony Smith said in a written statement.
Giving the SAT only to juniors also will make for a simpler process during the testing season. In the past, districts could pick which PARCC exams to administer in high school, such as ninth-grade-level English language arts and algebra I, or 11th-grade-level English and algebra II. Students taking the tests could be in different grades, as long as they were in specific courses that would coincide with the PARCC exams.
But that approach left some kids off the testing roster for a variety of reasons, according to a Tribune review of testing data and student enrollment earlier this year. Federal law requires that students be tested in reading and math at least once in high school.
Federal law also requires that students take a science exam at least once in high school. Illinois' new science exam is not connected to PARCC and will continue be given to high school students, administrators said.
Some school officials and education reform groups got word of the elimination of PARCC in a conference call Monday with the state board of education.
Roger Eddy, head of the Illinois Association of School Boards, was on the call and supports the move.
"I think it's important that if we're looking at assessments, we should eliminate duplication," Eddy said. "We assess and assess and assess, and you've got to remember that sometimes we have to teach kids."
In addition, the SAT is meaningful because students can use their scores to get into college, Eddy said.
"We didn't get that far with PARCC," he added, meaning that PARCC exams were not used for college admissions purposes.
The situation over high school testing has been simmering for many months, with high school administrators pressing the state to reconsider the state testing roster for high school students and lawmakers pursuing ways to make sure kids could continue to take a state-paid college entrance exam.
An email went out to district superintendents Monday afternoon, from Superintendent Smith, who said the state listened to feedback from school districts and took into consideration the state's budget challenges in deciding to eliminate PARCC at the high school level.
Superintendent Lynne Panega, of Lake Park High School District 108, has long been critical of the high school testing lineup and called the elimination of PARCC "great news on multiple fronts."
In an email to the Tribune, she said,
"Using a college admissions test like the SAT for state and federal accountability is logical; it is meaningful for students and they have buy-in. This is what many high school superintendents continuously advocated for beginning several years ago. The implementation of PARCC at the high school level was flawed from the onset."
