We finally received another long-awaited, FOIA'd report, this time the one promised in the CPS elementary promotion policy, which states on p. 6:

"The district will maintain all testing data by race and ethnicity of test-takers and shall annually review this data in regard to students who are promoted and retained pursuant to the requirements of the policy in order to ensure that there is no disparate impact based upon race or ethnicity created by the operation of the policy. All such data shall be made available to a parent upon request" (emphasis added).

If you take a look at the far right-hand column of the chart, it's hard to see how CPS could have reviewed this data annually and not seen a disparate impact between African-American students and everyone else.   

The headings on the report, which can't be read in the dark heading at the top of the page, are as follows:

Year - District enrollment for grades 3, 6, and 8 - race - number promoted - percent promoted - number retained - percent retained.

CPS's promises to Office for Civil Rights 

Some may recall that the CPS promotion policy was changed in 2000 after a complaint PURE filed with the Federal Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. This complaint ended CPS's policy of holding back students based on their Iowa test scores alone. The provision cited above was part of that agreement, and was clearly meant to assure that the CPS policy would not have a discriminatory impact. But the results suggest that the policy continues to discriminate against African-American students.

PURE will consider our next steps, and would welcome e-mails or phone calls (312-491-9101) from families whose students have been held back. 

Attorney General had to step in again 

We had been requesting this report (which any parent was supposed to be able to get, according to CPS's policy) since February. CPS did not respond to that letter or a follow-up letter we sent in March, so again we wrote to the Attorney General. Within days (or maybe even hours!) of receiving her letter, CPS had the report in the mail.

Perhaps this language, from the AG's letter, spurred them to action:

"Based on the information provided, it appears that CPS's processing of her FOIA request has been deficient and in violation of the clear provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. Please be reminded that a public body is statutorily required to respond..."

That emphasis was actually in the AG's letter!