Subject:  Resolution No.
               In Support of Alternative Assessments and Multiple Measures
               Of Student Learning
- Commissioners Eric Mar and Mark Sanchez
 

WHEREAS: California’s high stakes tests such as the Stanford 9 and the High
                      School Exit Exam are administered across unequal schools, with schools in low-income communities of color experiencing, for example, more shortages of educational materials, inadequate learning environments, and higher rates of teacher and administrative turnover (see attached “Williams/ACLU” case against the state of California); and

WHEREAS: These conditions contribute to an achievement gap between inequitably
                       resourced schools and other schools; and

WHEREAS: The reliance on high stakes tests such as the Stanford 9 and the HSEE as
                       the primary measures of school and student performance unfairly penalizes students who have not been provided with the academic tools to perform to their highest potential on these tests; and

WHEREAS: High-stakes tests such as the Stanford 9 and High School Exit Exam
                       (HSEE) discriminate based on language because they are given only in English; and

WHEREAS: Resources provided by the state’s intervention programs for "low
                       performing" schools are grossly inadequate to compensate and remediate for long term state underfunding and highly unequal opportunities to learn; and

WHEREAS: High-stakes tests such as the Stanford 9 and HSEE promote a narrowing of
                      the curriculum and "teaching to the test" in all schools, and determine how much money schools and scholarship candidates get through the Academic Performance Index (API), and whether students will graduate from high school through the HSEE; and

WHEREAS: Desperately needed education funding and instructional time are diverted to
                       administer tests; and
 

Subject:  Resolution No.
               In Support of Alternative Assessments and Multiple Measures
               Of Student Learning
- Commissioners Eric Mar and Mark Sanchez     Page 2
 

WHEREAS: In 2000-2001 HSEE testing, African-American and Latino students were
                      failed at twice the rate of their white counterparts, and low-income students at twice the rate of  middle-class students (Applied Research Center, Oakland), and the wealthiest 10% of schools in California have received more API rewards than schools in other income brackets (California Budget Project, Sacramento); and

WHEREAS: The Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights cites California for numerous
                      violations of Federal law for failing to help disadvantaged students because it depends on inadequate , off-the-shelf, multiple-choice tests such as the Stanford 9 and HSEE as the center of its accountability system and doesn’t use “multiple measures” to assess student performance (see CCCR report attached); and

WHEREAS: A growing and  virtually incontrovertible body of research evidence
                      demonstrates that high stakes tests across the nation are a failure in both raising academic achievement and achieving real accountability; and

WHEREAS: Education partnerships locally and nationally have developed alternative,
                      potentially more equitable and academically constructive tools to measure student learning and school performance.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That the San Francisco Unified School District
                                                              authorize the Assessment and Achievement Office to conduct a study of alternative assessments that the district could use to the benefit of its students and schools as a real tool for measuring academic achievement and for providing real accountability for equal educational outcomes for all students; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the Assessment and Achievement Office
                                                        undertake the study in partnership with a task force comprised of District Board of Education Members, teachers, administrators, university scholars and community-based education reform organizations;  and

FURTHER BE IT RESOLVED: That the Assessment and Achievement Office submit
                                                         the names of the proposed members of the task force within thirty days, submit an interim report to the Board's Curriculum Committee after three months and deliver a final report on its findings, including policy implications and recommendations, to the full Board of Education within six months.
 

5/28/02 First Reading & referred to Curriculum Committee