Schools
EG Parent Named In Winning Suit Against Department Of Ed
At issue is a Department of Education retreat later this month to discuss high stakes testing – the judge ruled it must not exclude the public, including parents such as Tina Egan.
This article was amended Aug. 13, 2013, at 10:30 a.m.
Tina Egan of East Greenwich has worked hard for the past 11 years to make
sure her daughter received as inclusive an education as possible. Tessa Egan, 17, was born with Down syndrome and an intellectual disability, but she has completed her coursework and advanced each year with her typically developing peers. In less than three weeks, Tessa will begin her senior year at East Greenwich High School.
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But as a member of the Class of 2014, Tessa will need to show “partial proficiency” on the NECAP standardized math and English tests. This high-stakes testing, as this is called, is the subject of a retreat by the state Department of Education later this month. Egan and two others were the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the Rhode Island ACLU to open this discussion to the public.
The ACLU argued any discussions behind closed doors would violate the state’s Open Meetings Law.
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Superior Court Judge Daniel Procaccini agreed last week, ruling it would cause “substantial and irreparable harm” if members of the public were not allowed to attend discussions of the NECAP tests during RIDE’s retreat, which is to take place at URI’s W. Alton Jones campus in West Greenwich on Aug. 25-26.
“They have made a strong case that the subject matter must be [conducted] in an open meeting,” Procaccini said after hearing arguments, according to the Providence Journal. “I have to consider the interests of the public and those interests loom large in this case.”
Egan signed on to the lawsuit after attempts over the past several months to get the education department to address situations such as that presented by her daughter. She addressed her concerns in a letter written in July to Chairwoman Eva Marie Mancuso:
“With a strong team of educators, appropriate supports and accommodations as well as her own hard work and determination, Tessa has had a strong academic experience and is now a rising senior at East Greenwich High School. She has applied herself day after day. She has strong skills in math and reading, for her. She reads and raises her hand, participating in classroom discussions.
"Like all her peers in school, she took NECAP tests. However, unlike the peers without intellectual disabilities, even with her best efforts on these standard tests, she did not attain a score of partial proficiency in math or reading. Now she retakes the tests twice more, forcing her to spend another enormous commitment of time doing nothing but reading and math preparation in extra classes and after-school cram sessions. She is doing her math modules each day this summer and is happy to do that. Nevertheless, this extra hard work simply piles on the discrimination against students like Tessa – no electives, no time to hang with peers, then no high school diploma. Indeed, a majority of Tessa’s peers in high school without intellectual disabilities see the NECAPS as just a boring pain and hassle. But for Tessa, it’s the insurmountable barrier to a diploma, to the high school degree, to the next stage of life in an inclusive world and community.”
When the ACLU lawsuit was filed, on Aug. 2, Egan wrote,
“As a parent of a student in the public school system, it is extremely discouraging to think that our state's Board of Education is endeavoring to review information, hold discussions and/or make decisions that critically affect our children's future without the input of the public, experts and the students themselves. The open meeting laws are intended to ensure fairness and opportunity to be heard. How can the RI Department of Education even pretend to be dedicated to moving our educational systems forward without the input and careful considerations of the concerns of the public? The RIDE website declares that our state will create and support great schools and programs by working with communities, families, civic leaders, and all educators so that Rhode Island leads the way in public education. Apparently the Board of Education has decided that is does not need to adhere to its own stated mission and methods at this time."This is not the end of the NECAP being used as a graduation requirement. But, for Egan, it is the continuation of a discussion. She added:
"The next very important matter is for RIDE to consider the petition filed in opposition to the high stakes testing [here's a link] and to make the meeting (former "retreat") on Aug. 25 and 26 as open and welcoming of the democratic process as possible. The citizens of Rhode Island, including those many members of the class of 2014, deserve a full and transparent debate about high stakes testing in RI now.
"I'd like Ms. Mancuso and each member of the Board of Education to think about advancing education in R.I., not retreating to a place where an enormous number of hard working students leave high school without a diploma."
You can read a story about Chairwoman Mancuso's visit to East Greenwich last spring here.
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