,
17 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
Why would anyone want to put a school on probation because of third graders’ report card grades? Just, why?
Here’s the state law, mostly from 1995, that says that CPS needs to “monitor the performance” of its schools: ilga.gov/legislation/il…
This was pre-NCLB so there was no state accountability system back then.
But for nearly 20 years, there has also been a state rating system too.
When NCLB was the law of the land, the vast majority of CPS schools weren’t making “Adequate Yearly Progress” towards 100% of students being “proficient” by 2014 fairtest.org/what-no-child-…
So having an internal rating system with its own finer grained hierarchy of ratings with associated punitive measures made some (bureaucratic) sense
From 2005 on, CPS as a district didn't make AYP. By 2013, only 64 schools in the entire district had made AYP, about 12% of schools schoolreports.cps.edu/cpsedu/schoold…
So if you were going to carry out the NCLB mandated sanctions on any school that hadn't made AYP, you'd pretty eventually "restructuring" most of the schools in the district
CPS wanted to pick and choose, so they used their own internal rating system instead of the federal/state AYP (eventually affecting about 1/3 of the district: interactive.wbez.org/generation-sch…)
(well, slightly less---NCLB passed in 2001, but it took a few more years for the first AYP ratings to be assigned..)
Then in 2015, Congress passed ESSA. Now Illinois has its own level rating system ("Tiers") but despite the harsh labels assigned to the Tiers ("Underperforming" "Lowest Performing" for the bottom two of four), consequences assigned to the ratings aren't really punitive
Low-performing schools get more money and assistance for improvement isbe.net/Documents/Illi…
The tier ratings aren't great, but they could be worse. ISBE is in the process of revising how they are calculated, and maybe even how many tiers there are and what they are called.
(@FairTestOffice compared state plans here. IL's isn't fabulous, but it isn't terrible fairtest.org/sites/default/…)
The point of this thread: CPS doesn't need its own rating system. It's a redundant waste of resources at best; a terrible destructive force ruining kids' educational experience at worst (see: children wearing lanyards with their NWEA RIT score around their neck)
Why is a resource-strapped district duplicating what the state already does---and must do to comply with federal law?
ILGA should amend the school code and kill "Sec. 34-8.3. Remediation and probation of attendance centers" altogether. CPS' internal SQRP is a giant, harmful waste of money.
