SPECIAL ED STUDENTS FEELING PARCC PINCH
Not only are they tested according to grade level rather than ability, but they miss out on services while teachers are reassigned for testing duty
The monthlong window for giving Illinois’ standardized PARCC test always throws off school schedules. Regular lessons are disrupted. Computer labs get cordoned off for testing. Teachers get pulled in from art and music and other “specials” to help administer the test.
But few in Chicago are affected as much as special education students, teachers say. These students get tested at grade level, rather than according to their ability, adding to the normal stress of testing. And many miss out on services they’re entitled to receive while their teachers are assigned to testing duty.
At some schools, that also means those services might not be available to kids too young for the PARCC test, which is given to thirdthrough eighth- graders, teachers say.
Allyson Moloney, a K- 4 special education teacher on the South Side, has been testing her third- and fourthgraders, granting them accommodations spelled out in each special ed student’s “individualized education plan,” known as an IEP. For instance, they might be allowed more time or have directions read aloud by a teacher.
Moloney has been testing two days a week for three weeks, plus giving makeup tests for kids who were absent.
“That means I don’t see students in the other grades I am serving” in their other classes, says Moloney, who agreed to an interview on the condition that her school not be identified because she didn’t have official permission to speak. “All of our paraprofessionals are tied up with testing. Even our ‘ specials’ teachers — gym and tech — are tied up with PARCC testing. We don’t have a lot of extra bodies that can help us out.”
Special education students — which includes students with a learning disability or a behavior issue — typically qualify for some accommodations in testing and get tested apart from their general education classmates.
At Walsh Elementary School in Pilsen, “Students with disabilities often miss out on services while the testing window is open,” school counselor Kristy Brooks says. “No matter how hard special ed teachers work, there are a lot of different groups of kids with various accommodations to get through with testing. So it takes awhile to complete special ed testing and therefore takes special ed teachers away from services. For example, kids with IEPs or ‘ 504s’ for medical reasons might have extended time, stop- the- clock breaks or readaloud” for the math section.
Another Southwest Side elementary teacher, who asked that she not be named because she wasn’t authorized to speak, says that, in her special education classes, there’s been “no real instruction going on for three full weeks.”
“My fifth- graders are getting pulled out of other classes and are not being tested with their peers because of extended time,” she says. “None of my kids are getting all of their minutes right now.”
In a statement, CPS said the district “requires school leaders to schedule diverse learners first to ensure all individualized education programs are fully implemented. Central Office staff are available to assist with scheduling the state- mandated PARCC assessment, and we encourage school leaders who have scheduling concerns to seek our help so that the needs of all students are met.”
Rod Estvan, an education policy analyst with the disabilities rights group Access Living, says, “It’s inevitable some services are skipped.” And unless children miss a large chunk of learning, there’s not much parents can do to demand that time be made up, says Estvan.
“In most cases, missing one or two hours of services due to a principal reallocating a special education teacher would not trigger the legal standard for providing compensatory services,” he says.
According to Estvan, “The primary complaints we get are about some kids being denied individual testing accommodations that are in IEPs because the teachers are spread so thin. It’s hard to prove if the CPS staff deny that the children were not tested individually outside of computer labs, even though some kids tell their parents they were tested with everyone else.”
The idea behind the state mandate to test everyone, including children with disabilities, was to make sure that schools couldn’t take steps to exclude those students — and then see their average scores boosted as a result by testing only students likely to score higher.
PARCC “is designed to give schools and teachers more information to support improvement and differentiation in instruction,” state education officials have told parents.
But in interviews, teachers say they worry that the students they test are often in over their heads and finish their testing feeling frustrated and upset.
“It’s so hard because I have students who are in fourth grade because of a reading disability reading at end- of-kindergarten or first- grade reading level,” Moloney says. “PARCC allows for some accommodations. But there are no accommodations that can make this test manageable for my students.”
“Since PARCC measures grade- level proficiency, and my kids don’t perform at grade level,” Moloney says, “the data’s not very helpful for me as a spec ed teacher in order to push them forward.”