Beautiful Differences: Victims of Standardized Testing
Hope Institute Learning Academy, Chicago, IL

10/16/2012

Hope Institute Learning Academy, a contract school that serves the Chicago Public Schools, opened in September 2009. It was intended to be a model for inclusive education. My son Colin, who has several disabilities, is enrolled as a student at Hope Institute. He wasn’t very happy at his previous school, one that was ill equipped to respond to the beautiful differences among its student population. But Hope Institute was a different story. After only a short period of time as a Hope student, my son actually began to feel happy and enthusiastic about going to school. And despite his earlier challenges, today, homework is one of Colin’s preferred activities.

I could tell you many uplifting stories about the students at Hope, and how the teachers and staff work to create a school where responsible inclusion is practiced, embraced, and celebrated. Twenty-percent of the students who attend Hope Institute Learning Academy have individualized educational plans (IEP) and play, learn, and socialize along with their nuerotypical classmates.

Imagine my dismay as a mom, educator, and ardent believer in inclusive education, when I discovered last year that the school would not open a 6 th grade as planned for fall 2012. My son was in 4th grade at the time, so I had a year to make other arrangements. But I witnessed the 5th grade parents’ panic when they learned that 6th grade would not be available and they had to find another school on short notice. At the parents’ meeting, officials from the Office of Specialized Services informed us that Chicago Public Schools didn’t offer any other school with an inclusive program like Hope. I was shocked that a school official would be that candid in a room full of parents. But it wasn’t news. We already knew that Hope was a singular opportunity for our wonderful, special children.

At this point a reasonable person might ask, “Why would a school, practicing an inclusive education model in which students were making tremendous gains, both academic and social, be blocked from continued growth?” The answer is simple: test scores. The officials from the school informed us that they were “strongly advised” by the Chicago Public Schools that they should not extend to 6 th grade because of “below target” standardized test scores. This didn’t make sense to me because the test scores demonstrated double-digit growth. For other politically favorite charter schools, this kind of similar outcome resulted in expansion.

Just like children all across the country, students at Hope Institute Learning Academy are now victims of standardized tests - the politicians’ and millionaires’ preferred tool for justifying both the existence and elimination of certain schools. But we educators know that these standardized test scores are a woefully inadequate and imperfect measure of academic achievement. Academic research consistently shows that no one assessment can be completely accurate in and of itself. This is especially true for students with special needs. This is why, as educators, we use more than one assessment to determine academic achievement. Think about it. If teachers were to use just one test score in order to determine quarterly grades, they’d be fired. Yet politicians, or their appointees who often have questionable credentials in education and assessment, don’t think twice about using this flawed and unsupported method for determining the future of schools like Hope Institute Learning Academy – a school with a research-based educational model. Perhaps my fellow ELA teachers will join me in using this as an example the next time we teach the meaning of “dramatic irony”.

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