Protest RIDE’s High-Stakes Testing Policy Thursday

Next Thursday youth, parents, and other advocates will be heading to the Board of Regents meeting to protest against the new high-stakes testing graduation requirements that Commission Gist and the Regents passed last year.

This discriminatory policy, which is scheduled to be implemented in Rhode Island schools this October, is an absolute disaster. It uses a test, the NECAP, that was not designed to evaluate individual achievement, and it will undoubtedly keep many Rhode Island youth from receiving their diplomas (and will have a disproportionate impact on students of color, students with IEPs, and English as a Second Language students).

We need to delay or halt the implementation of this discriminatory testing requirement. Next Thursday is the Board of Regents’ second to last meeting before disbanding in November, so it’s imperative we get them to add this issue to their agenda and let them know, loud and clear, that our focus should be on improving our school systems, not on punishing young people.

To do this, we need a big turnout on Thursday. I’ll be there with youth from the Providence Student Union and a number of other youth organizations and advocacy groups, such as the ACLU. Can you join us?

Details: Thursday, October 4th, at 4:00 pm at the Shepard Building (URI’s Downtown Campus, 5th floor), located at 80 Washington Street in Providence.

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/events/353281238092356/