board of education – RI Future

June 4, 2015June 4, 2015

Community organizations file petition to delay high stakes testing

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The ACLU of Rhode Island and a coalition of 11 other organizations representing youth, parents, the disability community, and civil rights activists Tuesday filed a formal petition with the state Council on Elementary and Secondary Education to initiate a public rule-making process to bar school districts from using high-stakes testing as a graduation requirement or grading tool before 2020.

After the Rhode Island General Assembly approved a moratorium last year on the use of high-stakes testing until at least 2017, the Council, with support from the Commissioner of Education, proposed to continue the moratorium until 2020 in order to ensure students, parents, and teachers had adequate time to prepare for the new PARCC test. However, in adopting final regulations, the Council reversed itself and instead gave school districts the authority, if they chose, to institute high-stakes testing with the class of 2017. Shortly thereafter, the Commissioner unilaterally advised districts that they could also begin using PARCC scores as a component of students’ grades as early as this coming year. These developments prompted our petition.

Under the Administrative Procedures Act, the Council has 30 days to respond, either by denying the petition or by initiating a rule-making process where the public can testify and the Council can consider whether to accept, modify, or reject the proposal. Accepting the petition would provide the public with its first real opportunity to discuss the Council’s expedited schedule for use of the PARCC.

In the letter accompanying the petition, we pointed out that across the country school districts are encountering problems with the implementation of statewide standardized testing; more parents, teachers, and students are opposing such testing; and the number of states using PARCC had declined from 25 to 13 in just a few years. Waiting until 2020 to use PARCC scores against students was necessary in order to give RIDE and school districts “adequate time to put the instructional and other supports in place to give every student a fair chance to pass the PARCC.”

In addition to the ACLU of RI, the Coalition to Defend Public Education, George Wiley Center, NAACP Providence Branch, National Association of Social Workers/RI Chapter, Parent Support Network of Rhode Island, Parents Across Rhode Island, Providence Student Union, Rhode Island Disability Law Center, Rhode Island Teachers of English Language Learners, Tides Family Services, and Young Voices signed on to the petition.

We emphasized to the Council that it did not need to take a definitive stand on the merits of the petition in order to initiate rule-change proceedings. “Although we hope to ultimately convince you of the merits of this rule change, we trust you agree it is at least worthy of a full public discussion, and of one sooner rather than later,” our letter stated.

Jean Ann Guliano, from Parents Across Rhode Island, said: “Once again, the state has implemented a top down mandate without providing parents a meaningful mechanism to hold districts accountable. Districts are simply not providing students – particularly those living in poverty, or with special needs or limited English proficiency — the supports that RIDE requires districts to provide and that students need to do well on the PARCC. Students should not be the ones held accountable for poor testing preparation. This policy needs to change.”

For more on the ACLU’s efforts to halt high-stakes testing in Rhode Island, visit our issues page here.

April 27, 2014April 28, 2014

Judge says Board of Education should discuss NECAP policy in public

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With high school graduation imminently approaching, legislators, mayoral candidates, students, teachers, parents and community organizations have been discussing with frequency the Board of Education’s high stakes testing requirement for seniors. Remarkably, about the only entity that hasn’t publicly discussed the merits of the requirement is the Board itself.

Thanks to a court decision on Friday, that will soon change. But the Board’s refusal for so long to publicly defend their controversial policy – one that has the futures of literally hundreds of students hanging in the balance – demonstrates why it is critical for the General Assembly to step in and halt the NECAP testing requirement.

On three separate occasions in the past nine months, courts have found that the Board violated open government laws in avoiding publicly discussing the NECAP issue. In this most recent ruling, Superior Court Judge Luis Matos ordered the Board to finally come out of hiding.

Specifically, in response to a lawsuit we filed some months ago, the judge has required the Board to publicly discuss and vote on a petition submitted last June that asks the Board to hold a hearing on eliminating high stakes testing.

Last September, in a private meeting – that the judge held was a clear violation of the open meetings law – the Board rejected the petition by a 6-5 vote. Minutes of the secret meeting show that those who voted it down objected to reconsidering the mandate without having fall’s NECAP test results. Well, that excuse no longer exists. We know the results, and we know the harm that the NECAP requirement is wreaking on too many Rhode Island’s seniors, especially students with disabilities, English Language Learners, and those in the inner cities.

The court’s ruling is important for accountability: it is long past due for the Board to have a full and fair airing – in public – about why they think students’ futures should be ruined on the basis of an arbitrary standardized test. But the Board has dawdled long enough. It is difficult to put much faith in an agency that has violated the law three times to avoid the issue.

Whatever the Board ends up doing, let’s hope that legislators will take Friday’s ruling to heart, say “enough is enough,” and pass a bill that, at a minimum, puts a moratorium on high stakes testing. The stakes for hundreds of seniors are too high to wait any longer.

November 12, 2013November 12, 2013

Board of Education faces secrecy scrunity today in court

The new state Board of Education is well-known for trying to tamp down public discussion of the NECAP high stakes graduation requirement and today it will be in Superior Court defending itself against allegations from high school students, civil libertarians and other various equality activists who say it went too far in trying to silence the debate.

The ACLU, the Providence Student Union and others are seeking $5,000 from the Board of Education for “engaging in a knowing and/or willful violation of the Open Meetings Act,” according to the law suit, when the Board dealt with a petition to redress the high stakes testing issue earlier this year. The plaintiffs are also asking that whatever conversations happened behind closed doors be makde public.

Both parties are expected before Judge Luis Matos at 2 p.m. today in Providence.

“As a result of the high stakes testing requirement, scheduled to take effect in 2014, approximately 4,000 students face the risk of not graduating next year because of their scores on the current test, known as the NECAP,” according to the RI ACLU’s blog. “Yet to this day, despite repeated pleas from parents, students and community groups, the Board has refused to publicly discuss the requirement.”

The lawsuit contends the Board illegally addressed the petition in closed session. It is the second time the ACLU has accused the Board of Education of circumventing public scrutiny on the issue of high stakes testing. Only weeks before this suit, a judge forced the Board of Education to hold a planned private “retreat” publicly instead.

Earlier this year, a wide range of community groups that advocate for racial equality, social justice, disabled children and/or civil liberties asked the Board of Education to revisit its decision to make a passing or improving on a standardized test a condition of graduation. Despite widespread concern that a high stakes graduation requirement would unfairly punish students from lackluster school districts and place a greater burden on non-traditional learners, like students on the autism spectrum or English language learners, the Board declined the request.