Schools
Prospect Heights High School Teachers Refuse To Administer Standardized Test
At least 30 staff members claim the test serves no educational purpose and disproportionately hurts students whose first language is not English.
Teachers and staff at International High School in Prospect Heights are planning on actively defying mandatory testing, claiming it is unfair to a significant number of students.
The New York ELA Performance Exam is set to be administered Thursday and assesses performance levels of students and accounts for 20 percent of teacher evaluations.
In a recent letter opposing the Measures of Student Learning Performance Assessment test, 30 staff members, 24 of them teachers, said that the test served "no educational purpose" and was unfairly skewed against students whose first language was not English.
“In good conscience, as educators dedicated to the learning of our students and the welfare of our school communities, we are not administering this test,” the letter said.
Teachers claim that the tests can be "traumatic" for students learning English as proven by a similar test in which many of those students received a score of zero despite demonstrating improvement.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
