z41\doc\web\2000\05\case.txt In a message dated 5/2/00 4:23:25 PM, rparkany@BORG.COM writes: << Similarly exorbitant cost claims by Riverside > were also mentioned in your dismissal hearing, weren't they, George? >> Actually, the claims were made by Chicago's school board regarding the CASE tests. We reprinted about 200 CASE test items in our January - February 1999 issue (a week after the exams were given) and the school board sued us in federal court and claimed their "loss" was $1 million (or $1.3 million or $1.4 million, depending upon the day they concocted the sound bite on that one). That came to between $5,000 and $10,000 per item depending upon what you consider an item. For that, we got the likes of the one I wrote about recently (rural African females), and one of my favorites: U.S. History. CASE, Pilot Form B, January 1999 QUESTION 20 Which event occurred on July 4, 1776? A. the drafting of the United States Constitution B. the adoption of the Declaration of Independence C. the convening of the First Continental Congress D. the drafting of the Declaration of Rights and Grievances They sued me for $1 million; declaimed against me on all of the TV news shows on January 26, 1999 (and since, with sliming press leaks, among other treats); got a temporary restraining order, writ of seizure, and order of protection from a U.S. Judge; and suspended me without pay from my teaching job to protect the "security" of stuff like that. I maintain it was primarily to make sure that parents and taxpayers couldn't read the bilge Chicago's leaders were pumping under the perfume of "accountability" without risking the same fates and furies they've unleashed on me (and Substance). The lawsuit and related events did have the desired effect. People (other than those of us at Substance) have generally avoided discussing the content of any of Chicago's "standards" test since. (Even here, you risk Deanna's periodic flailings about "security" and stuff). This is definitely politics. A question that isn't on CASE, but which is politically relevant to all here: The "they" who went on television announcing that they had sued the newspaper Substance (and its editor George N. Schmidt) for $1 million on January 26, 1999 were: A. Richard M. Daley, Mayor of Chicago (and brother of "E") B. Paul G. Vallas, Chief Executive Officer, Chicago Public Schools (and former budget director in the administration of "A") C. Gery Chico, President, Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees [sic] (and former Chief of Staff of "A") D. Avis LaValle, Vice President of the Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees [sic] (and former media spokesperson for U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton and "A") E. William Daley, U. S. Secretary of Commerce and current head of the department that awards the "Baldridge" (also, brother of "A" and neighbor of "C") F. All of the above G. A, B, and C, but not D or E H. None of the above The correct answer is "G". It's easy enough to see how you might think Riverside was involved in the CASE scandals here in Second City, but that's not the case with CASE. Riverside supplies Chicago with Iowa and TAP tests. Illinois supplies us with the ISAT. Chicago's own bureaucrats (with a million dollars worth of assistance from UCLA's CRESST Center -- Eva Baker, Bob Linn, etc.) does CASE. Chicago teachers write the items every summer (instead of teaching summer school in classrooms without air conditioning) at nearly full salary for six weeks. Then outsiders compile the stuff into the CASE tests (22 in all so far). We've got more tests than anyone else (I think). In Chicago, our high school students each year must take three "standards" exams, plus assorted other things. We have: TAP (Riverside's test, which is used for high stakes decisions) ISAT (the Illinois test, which is used to rank schools but without high stakes for kids) CASE (Chicago's eternal "pilot" local "standards" battery of tests) In Chicago, elementary kids take the Iowa, ISAT (soon to be "Prairie State" tests) and (soon) CASE. Where "standards" and "accountability" are concerned, we're very cutting edge here. Of course, my kid's "gifted" fifth grade class has 31 kids in it, but we've also got every other fashion known to education. George N. Schmidt Editor, Substance 5132 W. Berteau Chicago, IL 60641 773-725-7502 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the ARN-L list, send command SIGNOFF ARN-L to LISTSERV@LISTS.CUA.EDU. << Do I have this right, Chicago is the only major city which spends a bundle of money to develop and administer its own city-wide assessment? Isn't that a total waste and duplication of state and national efforts?? >> You got that right. Our high school kids currently face CASE; TAP; and ISAT every year (CASE twice). Chicago has been inventing a thing called CASE (Chicago Academic Standards Examinations) since 1997. Each year, Chicago spends about $2 - $3 million on various activities (mostly summer patronage jobs for teachers writing test items) to develop 22 CASE "examinations", which are then administered at the end of each semester (in January and June, roughly). CASE has been written so far for high school students in English I, English II, U.S. History, World Studies, Algebra, Geometry, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, "Environmental Science" and "Earth and Space Science" (I put the parentheses there deliberately). There are presently no high stakes attached to CASE (although it's now optional for teachers to use it to calculate 25 percent of student grades). Illinois requires all students to take the ISAT test, our equivalent to the WASL (although there are as yet no stakes attached to ISAT in Illinois). Chicago has been using the ITBS and TAP tests for high stakes since the 1995-1996 school year, when Mayor Daley took over the school system and appointed his former budget director (Paul Vallas) and his former chief of staff (Gery Chico) as "CEO" and "President of the Board" respectively. So far, the stakes have included the retention of between 30,000 and 50,000 kids (for scoring "below" a grave equivalent they choose on the Iowa), the penning of several thousand kids in "transition centers", and the "reconstitution" of seven high schools, which resulted in the elimination of five principals and at least 137 tenured [sic] teachers. I'll send you a couple of papers and some other stuff. I've been suspended from my teaching job and sued for $1 million for publishing six of the 22 January 1999 CASE tests, in full, in our January - February edition of Substance. My public school teaching career in Chicago began in May 1969 when I was sent to teach sixth grade at the Crispus Attuck Elementary School, which served three of the 16-storey high rise public housing project buildings along South State Street. Most of my 30-year career in public school classrooms was in places like that or close to it, so I have a somewhat unique perspective. During my last full year teaching English (Bowen High School, Chicago), I also served as the school's "security coordinator". That year (1997-1998 school year) we buried seven of our students (or recent former students) who were murdered outside the school, usually over the bloody weekends that characterize the Crack Belt. The closest that any of those came to the school itself was December 16, 1997, when Antwan Jordan was short through the head outside the classroom windows on the east side of the building at about 2:30 p.m. I watched him die, called in the "187" to our principal, coordinated our work with the police, cheered briefly when they got four people (the right ones) for the murder, and then got drunk on the evening of December 19, 1997, with a bunch of colleagues (from "teaching" and law enforcement) on a night we should have been holding our annual Christmas dance. All of Bowen's dead kids that year were Black (five) or Mexican (two) males. I knew and worked with all of them. So you can imagine when Columbine hit, and all those children of (mostly) European origin ands ancestry were killed, I was puzzling for a time over how our media and leaders set our priorities. One thing, though. By the time of Columbine, I was "suspended without pay" by Chicago's leaders. So I wasn't in the line of fire any more on "security." I got calls and E-mail from my old security colleagues after Columbine. All said that it couldn't have happened at Bowen. Our doctrine, as opposed to the doctrine of the Littleton Police, was that our duty was to go after the violence, not observe it carefully. In every instance of major violence at Bowen High School during the time I was in (partly) charge of security, we eliminated the violence as quickly as possible through direct intervention. That included disarming children with knives, guns, and other weapons (a broken bottle taped into the bottom of a hairbrush, for example). Our doctrine was communications and direct intervention, not observation and communications. As a result, in October 1997 when I was on perimeter at closing time and two Latin Kings started cranking rounds at a bunch of Latin Dragons, my job was to move quickly towards them and narrate what I was observing into my walkie talkie (I was always unarmed). I was very glad after all that was over that (a) I didn't catch any of those bullets and (b) that I was still standing, instead of ducking, after all the years I preached that doctrine. Context matters in many things. I hope this helps put my view of the irrelevan ce of many of these testings into a context based on my three decades of service in the classrooms and hallways of some of America's most intense inner city schools. George Schmidt