News & Commentary

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.

A federal court in Rhode Island has ruled that the ACLU can proceed with a lawsuit on behalf of a North Providence resident who has twice been held in prison as a deportable “alien” even though she is a U.S. citizen. The court ruling holds that there are critical constitutional limits on the power of immigration and corrections officials to detain people while investigating their immigration status.

The ACLU of Rhode Island has sent a letter to Attorney General Peter Kilmartin urging him to close any criminal investigation into a Facebook page satirizing Rep. Scott Guthrie — a page the ACLU says is a clear exercise of free speech.

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 has filed an open records request today with the Cranston Police Department in an effort to determine whether the decision by a police captain to engage in blitz ticketing of overnight parking violators, after the Cranston City Council voted down a proposed union contract, was done through official channels.

The ACLU of Rhode Island has released materials today advising voters of their rights at the polls as Woonsocket prepares to host the state’s first election under a restrictive photo voter ID law.

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.

In response to the ongoing controversy in Cranston involving the apparent retaliation taken against two City Council members for their vote in November on a police union contract, the ACLU has written to Mayor Allan Fung, raising concerns about the investigation of the incident that is being conducted.