Substance. Substance will be mailed to readers on Thursday, October 3, 2002].
Metropolitan High School have informed Chicago schools Chief Executive
Officer Arne Duncan that they intend to refuse to administer the controversial CASE (Chicago Academic Standards Examinations) tests in January 2003.
High School Assessment Schedule”, CASE is to be administered between January
21 and January 24, 2003 at all Chicago public high schools. The
con-troversial examinations, which have been used in pilot or final form for
since 1998 in Chicago, are given in the following subjects: English 1,
English 2, Al-gebra, Geometry, World Studies, U.S. History, Biology,
Chemistry, Physics, Earth/Space Science, and Environmental Science.
s CEO Paul G. Vallas in 1998, have been controversial since their inception.
In January 1999, Substance published the full text of six of the 22 CASE
tests to show the poor quality of the tests. The tests had been administered
a week before the Substance publication and were verified as authentic. As a
result of the publication in Substance, the Chicago Board of Education sued
Substance for $1 million (charging “copyright infringement”) and fired its
editor (this reporter) from his teaching job at Chicago’s Bowen High School.
The lawsuit is still pending in federal court in Chicago.
awarding so-called “high school credit” for students who have passed the CASE
tests in elementary school. At Chicago’s King High School, one student has
reportedly been “CASEd Up” from 9th to 10th grade based on his having passed
CASE tests in eighth grade in a gifted program for elementary school students.
Chicago’s public high schools and one of the largest public schools in
Illinois. During the 2001-2002 school year, only Chicago’s Lane Technical
High School (with more than 4,000 students) educated more students than
Curie.
Chi-cago’s Midway Airport), Curie serves a predominantly working class and
middle class student population. During the 2001-2002 school year, the school
had 3,100 students. Curie is one of the most diverse public schools in the
largely segregated city. During the 2001-2002 school year, its student
population was 14 percent white; 28 percent Black; 53 percent Hispanic; and 5
percent Asian, according to Board of Education data.
Curie also serves a large and growing bilingual population which includes
hundreds of students whose first languages include Spanish, Polish, Arabic,
and several other languages from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Despite the intense pressure of the past decade, Curie has never been on
academic probation due to low test scores and has won numerous awards for its
extensive academic, extra-curricular and sports programs. “We don’t want
anyone to say that we’re doing this because we’re ‘failing,'” one of the
protesting teachers told Substance.
The twelve Curie High School teachers who have initiated the CASE protest
are calling themselves “Curie Teachers for Authentic Assessment”. In
experience, academic credentials, and recognition for their distinguished
teaching and other service to children, they are among what would be called
the “best” teachers in Chicago’s public schools. One observer noted that the
Curie teachers protesting CASE have more classroom teaching experience,
better academic credentials, and more prestigious university training than
Arne Duncan and the ten highest paid individuals in Duncan’s “manage-ment
team.”
The Curie teachers are also in the process of contacting teachers from
other major high schools across Chicago about joining them in their January
boycott of CASE. On September 24, they discussed the issues with teachers
from six other high schools.
The following is the text of the letter the teachers sent to Chicago
schools Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Arne Duncan on September 23, 2002.
October issue of Substance, the monthly newspaper of public education
published in Chicago. Substance will cover the growing resistance to the CASE
test among Chicago teachers as it develops between now and the January
examination dates.
Curie Teachers for Authentic Assessment
Curie Metro High School
4959 S. Archer Ave.
Chicago, IL 60632
Attn: Martin McGreal
administration of the Chicago Academic Standards Exam for all freshman and
sophomore students in the core subject areas. For the past two years,
teachers have been required to count the results of this exam as ten percent
of the tested students’ final grades. The CASE was created and implemented to
hold teachers accountable for basing instruction on the Chicago Academic
Standards toward the end of helping students acquire the skills detailed in
the standards. As teachers in the Chicago Public School system, we are very
con-cerned about this exam.
which it was designed, particularly in the subjects of English and Social
Studies. Using the Illinois State Goals as a foundation, the creators of the
Chicago Academic Standards detailed their standards and framework statements
to promote the idea that students do not only need to acquire basic skills
such as recall and memorization, but also higher order thinking skills,
including in-ference, synthesis, and analysis. The CASE, however, only
evaluates students on recall and simple comprehension skills. In fact, the
majority of the standards detailed in the Chicago Academic Standards are not
assessed by this exam.
implementation of the Chicago Reading Initiative (CRI). This initiative is
designed to engage teachers in effective reading instruction across the
curriculum. This model of reading instruction, developed by Tim Shanahan at
the University of Illinois (Chicago), requires teachers to implement
strategies designed to de-velop student reading fluency, word knowledge,
reading comprehension, and writing. The CASE, as it is currently written,
does not accurately reflect the ob-jectives of the CRI.
Social Studies sections, includes many poorly constructed and often
inaccurate test questions and answer choices. The text selections on the
English exam are often at a higher reading level than is expected of the
grade being tested. As a result, students are not able to complete reading in
the allotted time thereby significantly reducing test validity. In addition,
the test does not truly test students’ skills. Text selections sometimes
reflect a major work taught by teachers. Therefore, the test reflects
familiarity with texts and prior knowledge rather than the skills those
students have acquired. Also, since some teachers do not teach the works
reflected in the CASE text selections, there is no equity in students’
ability to achieve good results on the test. The rubrics use such imprecise
and vague language that establishing any norm for inter-rater reli-ability is
impossible. In addition, the English rubric only assesses one mode of
writing, yet often the extended constructed response prompts do not ask for
the mode of writing assessed by the rubric.
grades, are not used for any discernable purpose outside of the classroom.
While the CASE is designed to measure teacher accountability, the results
mean nothing, not only in terms of the test’s lack of validity, but also
because they are not used to assess instructional practices or to see whether
students are really up to the standards.
exam for several years, yet have met with no recourse or avenue for change.
Dissatisfaction with and knowledge of the test’s flaws leads to an
environment of teacher frustration and erodes teacher professionalism.
Additionally, the test compromises the Illinois Professional Teaching
Standards in regards to assessment.
instruction each year are sacrificed to administer this test alone. This
seems particu-larly wasteful when the results of the CASE are flawed and not
used for any discernable purpose. The implied pressure of this test on
teachers, partly due to the fact that students’ grades must be affected by
it, often results in more in-structional time being given over to test
preparation alone. Moreover, since it is a system-wide exam with portions of
the test needing to be score at a central location, the exams are
administered two to three weeks before the end of the semester. This practice
results in dramatic absentee rates among students the last weeks of each
semester. In total, the amount of lost instructional time is at least four
weeks each year.
be-hind it wish to promote. Unlike other exams which allow students to
dem-onstrate what they have learned, the CASE pushed students into an
evalua-tion of what they have not covered. Teachers search to fill in the
basic knowl-edge gaps of their students with small facts or definitions they
believe might be on the exam instead of focusing on developed understanding
of concepts, something expected in the Chicago Academic Standards. Not only
does it force teachers to rush superficial instruction, but it eliminates
most opportunities for cross-curricular collaboration and thematic planning.
At the end of the semester, we will be administering final exams appropriate
to our curriculum and based on the Illinois State Goals and Chicago Aca-demic
Standards. We hope to find other schools to follow our lead. If you would
like to get in touch with us, please respond by October 4, 2002.
Curie Teachers for Authentic Assessment
Martin W. McGreal
Katherine K. Hogan
Lori S. Heubner
Chad E. Kellerman
Daniel F. McGinn
Sandra Meyer
Eric J. Norton
Umbreen F. Qadeer
Michael R. Smith
Sara R. Spachman
Vera L. Wallace
Williams A. Watson, Jr.
Ms. Barbara Eason-Watkins, Chief Education Officer
Mr. Philip Hansen, Chief Accountability Officer
Mr. Wilfredo Ortiz, Chief Officer of High School Development
Ms. Jerryelyn Jones, Principal, Curie Metro High School
Ms. Debbie Lynch, President, Chicago Teachers Union
Chicago, IL 60641.