Parents Across America, Chicago-based Parents United for Responsible Education, and
the Chicago coalition More Than a Score strongly support the teachers at Chicago’s Saucedo
and Drummond schools and any other teachers in Chicago or elsewhere in Illinois who are refusing to administer the Illinois Standards
Achievement Test to their students beginning on Monday, March 3.
The parents represented by PAA, PURE, and MTAS oppose the misuse and overuse of standardized tests. We believe that schools across the nation – including those in Chicago – are being forced to administer far too many tests and to waste too much precious learning time on testing and test preparation. Some tests are given just to predict how students will do on future tests. Others are unfairly and improperly used to make life-changing decisions about children, a use that test makers themselves say is wrong. The ISAT is being phased out this year and has no particular purpose, but is being administered anyway.
Parents are increasingly fed up with excessive testing and test prep, which we believe has replaced far too many important aspects of education including the arts, science, history, civics, and spoken communication. This is why hundreds of parents at scores of Chicago schools are opting their children out of the ISAT this year. Many more are opting out of similar tests across the country.
We find it unfortunate that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) officials have responded to parents’ concerns with threats and misinformation. While they claim that schools may lose federal funds or even their accreditation if students don’t take the test, they have failed to provide any documentation for those claims.
For teachers like those at Saucedo, who support the parents, who want to teach and not incessantly test, and who have announced their intention not to administer the ISAT this year, the attempts at intimidation are worse: CPS has threatened to fire them and revoke their teaching licenses.
We stand in solidarity with these courageous teachers who are standing up for our children and their education.
Nationwide, a growing number of parents and teachers are rising up and saying “Enough!” Chicago parents and teachers are providing important leadership in this healthy movement away from excessive testing and towards a richer, more meaningful learning experience for our children.
PAA, PURE, and MTAS ask CPS to respect the decisions of parents to protect their children by opting them out of misused tests, and to honor the teachers who are refusing to give the tests, based on their desire to provide children with a rich, full education, rather than just more test prep.