A showdown over state testing is intensifying, with the Illinois State Board of Education threatening to yank as much as hundreds of millions of dollars from districts that don’t administer a new state exam to students.
A dramatic letter to school districts, obtained Friday by the Tribune, states: “We are directing you to administer the PARCC assessment to all students except those who are specifically exempted under law. If any district does not test, ISBE will withhold its Title I funds (dollars for impoverished schools),” wrote State School Superintendent Christopher Koch and James Meeks, newly appointed chairman of the state board of education.
The state officials also said schools could lose other dollars as well, including general state aid — the main pot of state money for schools, according to the letter dated Friday.
While the letter doesn’t mention Chicago Public Schools by name, CPS is clearly the largest target. The massive district could lose more than $1 billion if it doesn’t give the test and the state follows through on its threat.
“We are definitely alarmed by the threats,” said Jackson Potter a spokesman for the Chicago Teachers Union.
CPS recently announced that it will not administer the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, PARCC for short, to the vast majority of students. The test is based on new Common Core standards that emphasize critical thinking and problem-solving to better prepare students for college and work.
CPS officials made few comments on the issue Friday.
“Chicago Board of Education President David Vitale and Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett have received the letter from the Illinois State Board of Education and are evaluating and discussing the impacts on the district,” a district spokesman said.
CPS has cited concerns about access to technology — PARCC is a computer-based test — though paper and pencil is still an option for districts.
For example, the Schaumburg School District 54 just got permission from the state to do paper and pencil tests because it was having technology issues, said spokeswoman Terri McHugh, who stressed that the problems were not on the district’s end.
Potter, of the CTU, said: “It is ironic that the state board of education, which is supposed to defend the interest of low income students, is trying to put an educationally unsound testing regimen in place that will dramatically decrease the amount of quality instruction that low income students will receive.
“We think that there’s a growing movement of parents and educators who have been sounding the alarm that these tests are really detrimental and harmful to the academic development of children.”
Potter indicated that CTU would stand firm in its views.
“In any political fight, there are two sides, and in this case, one side is threatening the other,” he said. “Do we just back off and allow the test to be administered and whimper away, or we do stand up for children who are going to have to suffer under hours and hours of unhelpful testing that will detract from instruction?”
CPS officials previously said they will administer the PARCC to just 66 of its more than 600 schools as an extension of a pilot program that began last year. The rest of the schools will continue to administer local assessment such as NWEA-MAP, which tracks the academic growth of individual students but is not a statewide, standardized exam.
CPS has not selected the schools that will administer the test, officials said.
But under the federal law on statewide exams, “The assessment must be the same for all students,” the state board’s letter said.
Suburban districts have voiced concerns about the exam, but ISBE has said none of them has outright refused to give it.
CPS’ move has national implications as Congress discusses whether there should be less standardized testing in schools.
The federal government mandates statewide exams as a way to gauge student performance and in part judge schools.
But lawmakers, educators and parents have balked at the testing regimen, which has increased the number of hours used for testing instead of instruction. The reading and math PARCC exams each include two test sessions, one in March and another in late spring. It will be given to 3rd through 8th graders as well as some high school students.
Still, the law is the law — and states themselves can get in trouble with the U.S. Department of Education if districts don’t test students.
Koch and Meeks wrote in the letter: “Please understand that if a district does not administer the assessment, it not only places the district at risk of losing federal funds but it also places the entire State at risk of losing federal funds. According to communications with USDOE, if ISBE fails to sanction a district for failure to test, USDOE will withhold federal funds from the State.”
