NEW: RI Organizations File Petition To Rescind High-Stakes Testing
Monday, June 24, 2013
A coalition of 17 RI organizations has filed a petition with the Dept of Education, asking to rescind high-stakes testing graduation requirements.
Questions about the validity of high stakes testing as a graduation requirement have been a source of great concern and debate in recent months. In a cover letter accompanying the petition, the organizations expressed their concern that too much time was being spent teaching the test itself, rather than educating students more broadly. The petition also mentioned RIDE’s legislation, enacted earlier this month, authorizing teachers to pull students our of core classroom instruction in order to prepare for the test, if doing so is deemed in the students “best interest.”
The current Board of Education has been active for six months, but has not formally voted on this controversial requirement. Following this petition, the board has 30 days to respond, either by denying the petition or initiating a public rule-making process where they will take testimonies and consider their subsequent actions.
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“The petition does not make the Board take a stand on high-stakes testing. It just pushes the Board to start a public process where they have to, at the very least, think about whether to debate the issue," said Hector Perea, a member of the Providence Student Union. "We think the thousands of concerned students and parents of Rhode Island deserve at least that.”
The organizations involved in the petition noted that the testing particularly impacts students with disabilities and those for whom English is not their first language.
“None of the groups involved have protested the use of testing to get a better sense of how well schools are teaching or how students are achieving,” Steven Brown from the ACLU of Rhode Island told GoLocalProv. “It’s the high-stakes testing we take issue with. Right now more than 4000 students face the possibility of not getting a diploma on their scores from one test.”
Among the groups signing the petition are The Autism Project, Children’s Policy Coalition, College Visions, NAACP Providence Chapter, Providence Student Union, ACLU of Rhode Island, Rhode Island Disability Law Center, Rhode Island Teachers Of English Language Learners, Urban League of Rhode Island, and Youth in Action.
Brown said he is hopeful the new Board will react positively to the petition. “They’ve never had the opportunity to vote on this issue, but they’ve heard the comments from the public,” he said. “We think it’s crucial that they take up this debate soon because the future of so many students is at stake right now.”
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