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It’s that time of year again in school districts across America.

No, it’s not time to reflect on the crazy year students have had as remote, hybrid, or maybe even full-time, in-person learners amid a devastating pandemic. And sadly, no, it’s not a time to celebrate, with many traditional end-of-school events — proms, celebrations, graduations — modified or cancelled.

It’s that time of year when students sit hunched over their desks, Number 2 pencils in hand, filling in the bubbles on standardized tests.

During my early teaching days on the South Side of Chicago at Corliss and TEAM Englewood high schools (where the majority of the student population was Black), I became an opponent of standardized tests. I saw how test results labeled my students and my schools as failures. I watched as my brightest students, who showed their brilliance on a daily basis in my class, became dismayed by low scores.

I was often dumbfounded as to why their intelligence did not translate into a high test score. Was it anxiety over test-taking? But then I read the ample research on racial bias in standardized testing. During my career of working mainly with students of color, I have come to this conclusion: It is the testing itself that leads to the “achievement gap,” not the students.

Last week, I proctored the SAT test at East Leyden High School, a suburban Chicago school in Franklin Park. As I read the test directions aloud, I realized how this standardized exam, administered every year to millions of high school students across America, does not accurately measure how students learn or show their understanding of concepts.

Students’ results on any standardized test hinge on their ability to pick the right answer on multiple-choice questions. All of their understanding of a text or a math problem is reduced to their choice of fill-in bubble. As any educator in the field of literacy knows, there are a variety of ways to read texts. There are different ways to solve math problems too.

And in the real world, I can’t think of a single job in which adults read text and then answer a multiple choice question. Instead, they apply their skills to the job at hand.

Biden’s broken promise

Last spring, due to the pandemic, many districts cancelled standardized exams and colleges began waiving exam requirements for applicants. Even before the pandemic, a growing number of colleges and universities had begun eliminating exam requirements, as research has shown that student GPA’s predict college success better than standardized test scores.

So, why are we bringing back the pre-pandemic testing status quo now, in an about-face from the Biden administration?

In 2019, Joe Biden campaigned on the promise of curbing standardized testing. But now, his Department of Education has ordered that exams be administered despite the pandemic.

Biden’s administration says it wants to see the impact of disrupted learning due to COVID-19. The National Urban League, the National Center for Learning Disabilities and other groups agree, especially as it pertains to the impact on students of color.

But when has testing ever led to an educational revival for schools or students? It usually has the opposite effect: Labeling schools as “bad” and putting them at risk for closure, overwhelmingly in communities of color.

It took a pandemic for educators to imagine and operate in a world without testing — and our kids and schools did just fine without it.

Trust educators

What if we trusted teachers in the way that we trust other professionals to do their job? Instead, the Department of Education has decided to trust the test.

Standardized exams will be given as usual this year, though many state leaders oppose that action, including in Illinois. Once the pandemic is over, we can expect the same routine.

I invite our federal decision-makers to come to our schools and see learning in action. Watch as our students discuss Shakespeare or solve a calculus problem. Listen to them play music. See how often they check out library books because they’ve learned to love reading.

Then, come on the day they have to take a standardized exam. No joy, no sound, no creativity.

It is time for us to go beyond re-thinking standardized testing and end them altogether.

Trust our educators to teach, assess and prepare our students for the world beyond school.

Gina Caneva is the library media specialist for East Leyden High School in Franklin Park. She taught in CPS for 15 years. Follow her on Twitter @GinaCaneva

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No. 1 Loyola at No. 5 Marist, 6 p.m. Friday

With no playoffs, the biggest prize available this season is the final No. 1 ranking. No. 2 Lincoln-Way East has a strong case too, but running the table in the state’s toughest conference could wrap it up for Loyola (5-0, 2-0 CCL/ESCC Blue). No one’s been able to slow down Ramblers running back Vaughn Pemberton, and the Ramblers defense has passed every test. Marist (4-1, 1-1) has a dominant lineman in Notre Dame-bound Pat Coogan and a productive quarterback in Dontrell Jackson.

No. 4 Mount Carmel at No. 11 Brother Rice, 6 p.m. Friday

If Marist beats Loyola, Mount Carmel (4-1, 1-1) could grab a share of the CCL/ESCC title with a win. Dual-threat quarterback Justin Lynch, a Temple recruit, makes the Caravan go. Illinois recruit Kenenna Odeluga is an impact player on both sides of the ball for Mount Carmel. Brother Rice (3-2, 0-2) has the conference’s reigning Offensive Player of the Year in running back Willie Shaw.

No. 14 Prospect at No. 13 Barrington, 7 p.m. Friday

The beginning of the IHSA playoffs in 1974 meant the end of the Mid-Suburban League Super Bowl matching the conference’s division champs. It’s back for at least one year as a showdown between 5-0 teams with powerhouse offenses. Prospect is led by quarterback Gary Moeller and running back Luke Zardzin, who will be preferred walk-ons at Wisconsin and Northern Illinois respectively. Quarterback Peter Anderson has passed for 11 touchdowns and run for five more for Barrington.

No. 15 WW South vs. St. Charles North, 1 p.m.
No. 19 Wheaton North vs. No. 16 Batavia, 4 p.m. Saturday at Huskie Stadium, DeKalb

The DuKane Conference has established itself as the state’s premier Class 7A league, and it’s wrapping up the pandemic season with the closest thing we’ll get to playoffs: the four best teams playing a doubleheader at one of the IHSA’s rotating state final sites. With a number of juniors making an impact on offense and sophomore Ross Dansdill sparking the defense, Wheaton North (4-1) will be a force this fall. Batavia (4-1) has one of the state’s premier linebackers in Arizona-bound Matt Weerts (53 tackles, seven tackles for loss) and a balanced offense. WW South (4-1) features an elite pass-and-catch duo in Parker Brown and Brandon Bell, who teamed up on a 99-yard TD last week. Jordan Nubin, who will be a preferred walk-on at Minnesota this fall, is one of several two-way standouts for St. Charles North (3-1).

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Norwegian noise-rock band Årabrot have undergone many personnel changes over their two-decade career, and front man, composer, and sole constant member Kjetil Nernes has brought forth a different phase in the group’s sound with every one. In recent years, his main collaborator has been Swedish-Norwegian electronic producer and singer Karin Park; they’re also a married couple, and live in an old church in Park’s home village in Sweden that doubles as their studio (though they’ve also made several recordings at Electrical Audio, including 2011’s Solar Anus, which won them a Spellemann Prize for best metal record).…Read More

As of May 1, dancers there also can once again get face-to-face with patrons. But masks are still required for adult entertainment employees and recommended for customers.

LAS VEGAS — Topless dancers in Las Vegas can soon shed coronavirus restrictions along with some of their clothing and once again get face-to-face with patrons under rules accepted Thursday by a Nevada COVID-19 task force.

But masks still will be required for adult entertainment employees and will still be recommended for customers.

Strip clubs that went dark when Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak ordered casinos, clubs and nonessential businesses closed in March 2020 will be able to open May 1 at 80% of fire code capacity under strict social distancing guidelines.

The rules will allow strip club entertainers to get closer than three feet to patrons if the entertainer has gotten at least a first coronavirus vaccination 14 days earlier, according to county rules or if the dancers test negative in a weekly COVID test.

Occupancy limits will be relaxed but not completely lifted at many other businesses — stores, spas and saunas, restaurants and bars, even karaoke clubs — under a new reopening plan adopted by Clark County officials.

Deputy Clark County Fire Chief Billy Samuels.

Hair and nail salons, tattoo parlors and massage therapists will be able to book customers by appointment only.

A separate plan to lift restrictions almost completely in Washoe County skidded to a stop after health district, school and Reno city officials protested, pointing to rising coronavirus case numbers.

Existing rules including 50% capacity and six-foot social distancing will remain in effect.

The coronavirus pandemic has claimed 5,400 lives in Nevada and badly hurt an economy dependent on tourism, conventions, hotel bookings and big crowds. It also shut down businesses and threatened the livelihood of bartenders, waiters, entertainers and hotel clerks.

“We know there is COVID fatigue in our community,” Washoe County Commission Chairman Bob Lucey said before accepting an offer from task force chief Caleb Cage to broaden support and submit a finalized plan in coming days. No firm time frame was set.

Lucey had favored what he termed a “workable” plan to relax restrictions but acknowledged a rift among policymakers.

“People are going to return to life and the things they’ve missed in the last year whether we dictate mandates or not,” he said.

The snag came after last-minute protest letters Wednesday from county Health Officer Kevin Dick and Reno City Manager Doug Thornley pointed to a rise in the number of Washoe County COVID-19 cases linked to a variant first detected in the United Kingdom and a rise in the county’s 14-day test positivity rate to 7.2%. The World Health Organization goal to relax restrictions is 5% or less.

Scientists in Great Britain believe the variant is more contagious than previously identified strains. But U.S. health officials say vaccinations being given now are thought to be effective against the variant.

Dick and Thornley called for social distancing requirements to stay in place at least until June 1.

The governor has set a June 1 date for essentiallly lifting all state restrictions except for a requirement for people to wear face coverings.

Several rural Nevada counties received the go-ahead Thursday to relax restrictions and reopen businesses May 1, including Churchill, Douglas, Elko, Eureka, Humboldt and Nye. Other counties received approval last week.

Kyra Morgan, a Nevada state biostatistician, reminded the task force that lifting restrictions almost certainly will spread the virus.

The state Department of Health and Human Services has tallied more than 312,000 cases in the past 13 months. But rates have slowed since peaks in December and January.

As restrictions are relaxed in and around Las Vegas, bar seating will be OK next month with up to four people per group, and 12 people can be seated around dining tables, Samuels said. Most restrictions on youth and adult sports will be lifted.

Casino dayclubs and nightclubs can reopen, but designated dancing areas will remain closed until health officials report that a 60% community vaccination rate is met.

The reopening plan that Clark County lawmakers adopted for the state’s most populous area and its key economic region relies on reports from regional health officials about the percentage of people 16 and older in the county who have had gotten at least one vaccination shot, a number that’s now reached about 43%.

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The 96-year-old bee has in the past included vocabulary on written tests but never in the high-stakes oral competition rounds, where one mistake eliminates a speller.

WASHINGTON— The Scripps National Spelling Bee is undergoing a major overhaul to ensure it can identify a single champion, adding vocabulary questions and a lightning-round tiebreaker to this year’s pandemic-altered competition.

The 96-year-old bee has in the past included vocabulary on written tests but never in the high-stakes oral competition rounds, where one mistake eliminates a speller. The only previous tiebreaker to determine a single champion was a short-lived extra written test that never turned out to be needed.

The changes, announced this week, amount to a new direction for the bee under executive director J. Michael Durnil, who started in the job earlier this year.

Both new elements, however, also signal a departure from what for many observers is the core appeal of the bee: watching schoolchildren who have such mastery of roots and language patterns that they can figure out how to spell the trickiest words in the dictionary, even if they’ve never heard them before.

The 2020 bee was canceled because of the pandemic, the first time since World War II that the bee wasn’t on the calendar. This year’s event will be mostly virtual, and the in-person finals on July 8 have been moved from the bee’s longtime home in the Washington area to an ESPN campus in Florida.

The bee had co-champions from 2014-16, and the 2019 bee ended in an eight-way tie after organizers ran out of words difficult enough to challenge the top spellers, whose preparation with personal coaches and comprehensive study guides was no match for the vaunted Scripps word list.

Durnil did not directly criticize the previous bee but said ending with one winner was a priority.

“I think the spellers don’t enter into our competition thinking that they’re going to have to share the ultimate distinction of the spelling champion with anybody else,” Durnil told The Associated Press. “From a competitive standpoint, we owe it to the spellers to identify the champion of the spelling bee.”

In the lightning round, spellers would have 90 seconds to spell as many words as they can correctly. The rapid-fire tiebreaker would only be used if the bee gets toward the end of its allotted time and can’t get to a single winner in the traditional way, by eliminating spellers for getting a word wrong. The remaining spellers would get the same words in the lightning round and be isolated from one another.

Adding vocabulary, Durnil said, brings more academic rigor to the bee in keeping with its educational mission.

Siyona Mishra, a finalist in the bee in 2015 and 2017 who now coaches younger spellers — kids can’t compete after eighth grade — said there was a contradiction in Scripps’ justification for the changes.

“Simultaneously saying that vocab questions on (the) live stage are being added to encourage understanding of words doesn’t really match up with their addition of a lightning round of spelling,” Mishra wrote in an email. “Adding a lightning round will only emphasize to spellers that memorizing and immediately recognizing a word is what is more important than really learning the words.”

Memorizing definitions is not a core element of spellers’ training, said Zaila Avant-Garde, a 14-year-old from Hardey, Louisiana, who will be competing in this year’s bee.

“I just kind of pick up the definition. It seeps into me from looking at them. It’s not like I specifically dedicate time to studying vocabulary,” Zaila said. “Will I now study it? I’m not really sure.”

Zaila stressed that she didn’t mind the addition of vocabulary or the lightning round, which she said “will be really entertaining to watch or even to compete in.”

Scripps said live vocabulary rounds — in which spellers are given multiple-choice questions about word definitions — are being used in some regional bees this year, but some spellers were caught off guard by the change.

“I think it’s unfortunate that these changes were rolled out so late in the process,” Scott Remer, a former speller and spelling coach who wrote a book about how to train for the bee, said in an email. “Many students (including my tutees) have been studying hard for nationals for many months without any certainty about the format of the bee.”

Amber Born, who competed in the bee from 2010-13, said the lightning round “emphasizes speed over skill in a contest where that shouldn’t be the deciding factor.”

“I would prefer they just asked harder words,” Born added, “but it probably wouldn’t be as interesting on TV.”

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According to a source, the rapper-producer was found unresponsive Thursday in a hotel room in Tampa, Florida.

LOS ANGELES — Shock G, who blended whimsical wordplay with reverence for ‘70s funk as leader of the off-kilter Bay Area hip-hop group Digital Underground, has died. He was 57.

Nzazi Malonga, a longtime friend who served as head of security and helped manage the group, said the rapper-producer was found unresponsive Thursday in a hotel room in Tampa, Florida. Malonga said the performer, born Greg Jacobs, had struggled with drug addiction for years.

The group found fame with the Billboard Top 10 hit “Humpty Dance” in 1990, as Jacobs donned a Groucho Marx-style fake nose and glasses to become one of his many alter egos, Humpty Hump. He initially maintained the flamboyant Humpty was a separate person, doing in-character interviews and sometimes having his brother Kent Racker play the part.

“Same Song” a year later served as 2Pac’s introduction to music fans, with Shock G handing the baton to the future megastar, who had been working as a roadie for Digital Underground: “2Pac, go ‘head and rock this.”

Jacobs was an introverted “technical wizard” adept at arranging samples who played keyboards and drums, said Digital Underground co-founder Jimi Dright, known as Chopmaster J. Dright met his future bandmate while buying equipment at a music store in San Leandro, California, where Jacobs was working.

Big Boi, Chuck D, Snoop Dogg and Busta Rhymes were among those posting online tributes to Jacobs, with many expressing pain after the deaths earlier in the month of rappers DMX and Black Rob. “Our brother Shock G was a GIANT. There’s not one aspect of what we do musically that this man has not influenced,” wrote Talib Kweli.

“The Humpty Dance” invited an audience of awkward youth into hip-hop with its embrace of misfits and outcasts. “Stop whatcha doin’ / ’Cause I’m about to ruin / The image and the style that ya used to,” Shock G rapped with lighthearted bravado. “I’m crazy / Allow me to amaze thee / They say I’m ugly but it just don’t faze me.”

”‘The Humpty Dance’ spoke to all the people that were like him — the fat people, the unattractive people. If you moved like him, you could be whatever you want,” said Malonga.

The group’s platinum-selling debut album “Sex Packets” was titled after an imagined “sex in a pill” product product that Dright said was a response to the AIDS crisis. It was followed by the gold-selling “This is an EP Release” and “Sons of the P.”

Jacobs, whose partner-in-rhyme was the smooth-voiced Money-B, was most comfortable performing in disguise and often struggled privately with the spotlight. “He got to be the star of a production that we had assembled and it ate him up. He didn’t want to be that guy,” Dright said.

Malonga said Jacobs had lived with him in the Los Angeles area for several years to get sober in the early 2000s, but had relapsed and been recently living with family in Florida. He gave away much of his wealth and worked on many unfinished side projects, struggling to find validation from those around him.

“He had hundreds of things he could create. He could draw, he could write music, play piano, he could score things, he could write stories and scripts,” Malonga said. “But unless someone was telling him he was OK, he would never present that.”

“I was very disappointed that he didn’t really see his own talent,” he added. “He was far more humble and insecure than people thought.”

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A 19-year-old man was killed in a drive-by shooting Thursday in the 2500 block of West Cermak Road.

One person was killed and eight others wounded Thursday in shootings across Chicago, including a 19-year-old man who was fatally shot in Little Village on the Southwest Side.

A vehicle pulled up and someone inside fired shots at the man about 8:50 p.m. in the 2500 block of West Cermak Road, Chicago police said.

The teen was struck in the chest and face, police said. He was transported to Mount Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead, according to police.

The Cook County medical examiner’s office has not yet identified him.

In nonfatal attacks, two people were shot in Lawndale on the West Side.

The pair, a 32-year-old man and a 33-year-old woman, were dropping someone off about 10:45 a.m. when someone fired shots at them in the 4100 block of West Ogden Avenue, police said.

The man and woman fled in their vehicle but the shooter continued to fire shots, striking the man in the armpit and the woman in the side and back, police said. They drove themselves to Mt. Sinai Hospital, where they were listed in fair condition.

A 19-year-old man was shot Thursday night in Douglas Park on the West Side.

About 6:35 p.m., the man was on the sidewalk in the 1200 block of South Sacramento Drive when someone shot him in the back, police said.

He was transported to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition, police said.

A 47-year-old man was shot in Lawndale on the West Side.

He was in a parking lot about 8:35 p.m. in the 1000 block of South Western Avenue when an unknown person shot him in the foot, police said. He was transported to Stroger Hospital in good condition.

Minutes later, a man was shot in Heart of Chicago.

The 29-year-old was riding in a vehicle in the 2300 block of South Leavitt Street about 10:30 p.m. when someone inside a passing dark-colored sedan fired shots, police said. The man was struck in the head and taken to Stroger Hospital in fair condition.

A 21-year-old man was shot late Thursday in Little Village on the Southwest Side.

The man was driving about 11:55 p.m. in the 2400 block of South Troy Streen when shots were fired, police said. He was struck in the shoulder and was taken to Stroger Hospital in good condition.

In the day’s first reported shooting, a man was grazed by a bullet Thursday morning in South Loop.

About 4:20 a.m., he was in his apartment in the 1400 block of South Michigan Avenue, when three males came in and fired shots, police said. He was grazed by a bullet on his chin and took himself to Stroger Hospital where he is in good condition.

Eight people were shot, three fatally, Wednesday in Chicago.

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