News & Commentary

ACLU of Rhode Island executive director Steven Brown has issued the following statement in response to the Senate’s passage of legislation imposing a three-year moratorium on the use of high stakes testing requirements as a condition of high school graduation: “The ACLU is grateful for the Senate’s action today. Legislative intervention has become necessary because the state Board of Education has repeatedly refused to grapple with the valid criticisms that have been raised about its increasingly untenable high stakes test requirement. In fact, only two days ago, the Board once again rejected calls for public discussion of the issue. “The futures of too many high school seniors are hanging in the balance on the basis of a completely arbitrary high stakes testing requirement and a just as arbitrary waiver process. We are hopeful that the House will now follow the Senate’s lead and take prompt action so that the anxiety and uncertainty plaguing all these students are put to rest.” According to statistics released Monday by the Department of Education, with only a month to go before graduation, more than a quarter of all students with disabilities, more than a quarter of all English Language Learners, and almost one-sixth of all black and Hispanic seniors are at risk of not graduating as a result of the new diploma policy.

The ACLU of Rhode Island applauded the Senate Education Committee’s vote today to approve a bill imposing a three-year moratorium on the use of high stakes testing for high school students.

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.”