Graphic: Chicago Reader, ERIN ALTHEA

Bless Ben Joravsky.

I just saw and heard him last night at the Town Hall on the campaign for an elected school board in Chicago. As is his way, he brought some skepticism, realism and humor to the event.

Today he writes in the Chicago Reader about the assault on kindergarten kids in Chicago’s public schools: Sixty days of testing a year. In kindergarten. That is one-third of the school year.

Who is to blame?

Says Joravsky:

In fairness, I can’t completely blame Mayor Rahm Emanuel for this madness. So Mr. Mayor, you’re free to leave the courtroom. Instead, the blame for the latest test goes to the General Assembly and Governor Pat Quinn for passing the Performance Evaluation Reform Act, which has to be suspect since it includes the word reform. The purpose of PERA, passed in 2010, is to hold teachers accountable for how much their students learn—or at least how well they score on standardized tests, which is not always the same thing. But the idea is that high-scoring “good” teachers will keep their jobs and low-scoring “bad” teachers will be fired, presumably to be replaced by the thousands of “good” teachers eager to come to Illinois to give more tests. In defense of Quinn and the legislators, they had to pass PERA in order to be eligible for money from a federal program called Race to the Top. That’s the brainchild of President Barack Obama and Arne Duncan, his secretary of education, that makes states compete for federal education dollars in part by holding teachers accountable for how their students score on standardized tests. It amounts to a nationwide grant-writing contest with the winning states getting money, the losing states getting rejection letters, and students taking more tests.

Now Ben is the most intrepid of intrepid reporters. But he left out one important piece of the story. At least I think it is important.

When Governor Quinn was looking around to set up the committee that would draft the state’s Race to the Top application he chose Audrey Soglin, the Executive Director of the state’s largest teachers union, the Illinois Education Association, to chair it.

It was this committee that drafted the language for PERA that was then enacted by the General Assembly.

The actual dollar amount that was involved in the RTTT grant was half a million dollars. Peanuts when you consider the state’s education budget.

And the state didn’t get the grant even though we got PERA.

By the way, the PERA law laid the groundwork for Senate Bill 7. SB7 which ended seniority and tenure, required PERA be used as the basis for evaluating and firing teachers and required the 75% strike authorization vote for Chicago teachers.

The IEA leadership and Soglin joined forces with Stand for Children on Senate Bill 7.

So, when we draw up the list of who to blame for 60 days of testing for Chicago kindergarteners, let’s not forget to include Audrey and the rest of the IEA leadership.

And they’re still claiming it as a model for the nation.