Illinois Students Required to Take Test They Can't Read

It is interesting to note that Chicago Schools Chief, Arne Duncan, engages here in a transparent bit of grandstanding on this issue. Who is he trying to impress with his "last minute" appeals to the State? Surely it is the Latino parents of Chicago, who will hopefully react by staging a citywide and statewide boycott of this insanity. Did Duncan only recently learn about the fact that the state will require English learners to pass a test they can't read, or did he wait until he knew it was too late to file his protest? Great job, Arne.

Parents of Illinois need to take their children to the street for the civics lessons they are not getting in the chain gang test factories that are preparing their children to compete in that part of the global economy that sees Chinese workers working 300 hours a month for $200? Civil disobedience will prove the only antidote to this poison.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Spanish-speaking public school students will have to take standardized tests in English beginning Tuesday, after the state rebuffed a last-ditch effort by Chicago Public Schools to delay the testing.

Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan blasted the state Monday for moving forward with the Illinois State Achievement Test, even for students who are more fluent in Spanish.

State officials have said they have no choice, since federal education officials said that a Spanish-language alternative, the IMAGE test, is not adequate.

Duncan said that as a result of the state's refusal to delay the test, the district will not use the results of the ISAT exams as a condition for students to advance to the next grade. Students instead will be evaluated on their attendance, course work and test grades during the school year.

Duncan said that on Friday, U.S. Department of Education officials gave Illinois State Board of Education officials the permission to delay the ISAT exam for the English language learners, but state officials refused. . . .