News & Commentary

In an important victory for open government, a judge ruled today that the RI Board of Education violated the open meetings law when it held a secret meeting last September to discuss whether to reexamine the Board’s controversial “high stakes testing” graduation requirement. The Board held the secret meeting in response to a formal petition filed by the ACLU of Rhode Island and numerous other organizations for reconsideration of the testing mandate.

A report issued by the ACLU of Rhode Island today shows that Rhode Island’s public schools last year disproportionately suspended black students at the highest rates in nine years, while white students were suspended at record low rates. Like black children, Hispanic students remained severely over-suspended, with these disparities reaching all the way to the lowest grades. In addition, students generally – including elementary school children – were given out-of-school suspensions at alarming rates for minor disciplinary infractions.

National education experts are submitting written testimony today to express support for legislation that would delay or halt the RI Department of Education’s “high stakes testing” requirement for high school seniors. According to the latest RIDE statistics, almost 1,600 seniors remain at risk of not getting a diploma because of the testing requirement. The bills are being heard this afternoon by the House Health, Education and Welfare Committee.

The Rhode Island Board of Education today was found in violation of an open government law for the second time in six months — this time for failing to properly respond to a petition by the ACLU of Rhode Island and numerous other organizations seeking a public hearing on the Board’s controversial “high stakes testing” graduation requirement.

Community groups working with at-risk student populations took strong issue today with the RI Department of Education’s “rosy view” of NECAP high stakes testing requirement results released earlier this week for high school seniors.

The ACLU of Rhode Island has urged the Rhode Island Department of Health (DOH) to reexamine a proposed regulation that would force children out of day care and childcare providers out of work if they are not vaccinated for the flu, even if they are unvaccinated for medical reasons. In testimony submitted to the DOH, the ACLU called the regulation a “serious intrusion on the ability of individuals and families to make their own medical decisions.”

As questions swirl around the rationale behind certain aspects of the RI Department of Education’s required “waiver” process that is supposed to be available to students who do not “pass” the NECAP test, the ACLU of Rhode Island has sent a letter to the Board of Education raising serious concerns about the implementation of the entire “waiver” process itself. That process, claimed the ACLU, is in many instances “a completely arbitrary hodgepodge of inconsistent, incomplete, and poorly advertised policies that can only leave students and parents understandably anxious and perplexed.”

The ACLU of Rhode Island said today that the RI Department of Education has essentially acknowledged that the NECAP test – the high stakes test that it requires students to pass in order to get a high school diploma – is not a useful indicator of a student’s college readiness. It has done so after years of claiming otherwise, said the ACLU, by quietly revising its waiver policies this month to give diplomas to students who do not “pass” the NECAP if they are accepted into a “non-open enrollment, accredited higher education institution” or national community service programs like AmeriCorp or City Year.

The ACLU of Rhode Island is asking a court to impose fines against the Pawtucket School District for failing to respond to an open records request the ACLU submitted in October. The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court by ACLU volunteer attorney Karen Davidson, charges that the district unlawfully failed to respond to two requests from the ACLU for public documents. It is the second time in two years the ACLU has sued Pawtucket schools for ignoring the open records law.