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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of
3Representatives wish to express our grave concerns and those
4of our constituents about the unfairness of testing during the
52020-2021 school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic;
6specifically, testing that will begin on March 15, 2021; and
 
7    WHEREAS, When COVID-19 hit a year ago, businesses,
8churches, and schools, to name a few, closed; it was
9devastating to business owners, consumers, and families;
10students, in particular, have been negatively affected in many
11ways, both in and out of the classroom; very limited teaching
12and learning took place during the 4th quarter of the
132019-2020 school year; in some areas, students have had no
14access to computers or the internet; consequently, these
15students have been learning very little and, in some cases,
16nothing; and
 
17    WHEREAS, At this point in the 2020-2021 school year, some
18districts have offered hybrid learning; some are fully
19in-person; some are fully remote; some are a combination; even
20a year after the onset of COVID-19 restrictions, school
21districts everywhere are still trying to determine the safest
22method for teaching their students; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, There are several concerns if standardized
2testing proceeds during this school year, including the
3validity of the test results and the fairness of test scores to
4mark the students' success and to determine teachers'
5accountability; we have seen no valid reason for testing under
6these circumstances,; and
 
7    WHEREAS, Some other testing options have been discussed;
8one is for students to be tested on Saturdays; another is for
9testing to take place in the month of June; a third option is
10for students to be tested in the fall of 2021 as well as in the
11spring of 2022; two standardized testing sessions in one
12school year for students who may be returning to a "normal"
13school year would be overwhelming; again, none of these
14accommodations truly accommodate the children; and
 
15    WHEREAS, Parents have told us that their children are
16struggling just to complete homework that, in some cases, is
17extremely excessive; on top of learning the lessons being
18taught and then doing homework, they are experiencing Zoom
19fatigue due to the dependence of using the video platform to
20learn; parents and teachers alike are very distressed by the
21decision to still test; and
 
22    WHEREAS, Students across the United States are being
23taught in the most widely diverse methods that we adults have

 

 

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1ever known; they are already traumatized by all of the
2above-mentioned situations; they are experiencing enough
3stress by what is going on in our world; they do not need the
4stress of test taking for which many have not had appropriate
5exposure to the content being tested; although their education
6has been dramatically changed, the tests have not, nor is
7there time to rewrite and standardize them; therefore, be it
 
8    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
9HUNDRED SECOND GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
10we request the U.S. Department of Education exempt Illinois
11schools from taking the state mandated standardized tests in
12the spring of 2021; and be it further
 
13    RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
14delivered to the U.S. Department of Education.