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Strong defense lifts McHenry to 5-3 win over top-seeded Prairie Ridge in title game / C1
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Missing medal turns up
MODIFICATIONS MADE TO NEW STANDARDIZED TEST
J’burg woman reunited with father’s Purple Heart baugh said. “The chances you would know it belongs to your father and grandfather are slim to none.” Born in Tampa, Florida, Brewer enlisted in the Army sometime in the 1930s. When World War II started, then-Pvt. Brewer was stationed with a coast artillery regiment defending the Philippines, Farrell said. After Corregidor fell on May 6, 1942, Brewer was crammed into the cargo hold of a “hell ship” to Japan. He was held in different prison camps until he was liberated when the war ended in 1945. Suffering from cholera and malaria, Brewer went to Walter Reed Army Medical Center when he returned to the states, Farrell said. He was transferred to the West Coast, where he met his future wife, Dolores Giosa. He transferred to Fort Lewis in Washington, where he became a driver for Lt. Gen. Mark Clark, Farrell said. Farrell was born in 1951. Two years later, nine days after his second daughter was born, Sgt. Brewer died at the age of 43 at Walter Reed.
By KATIE DAHLSTROM kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com
Illustration by R. Scott Helmchen – shelmchen@shawmedia.com
TEST TIMES REDUCED Superintendents pleased with changes to PARCC procedures By ALLISON GOODRICH agoodrich@shawmedia.com School district superintendents across McHenry County are generally pleased in light of some recent changes made to the new standardized test tied to Common Core, officially administered for the first time this year. In the past few months, students throughout the county sat down for the first official Partnership for Assessment of Readiness and College and Careers, or PARCC, testing. In response to feedback from school districts and teachers after the test’s first official run, PARCC announced in a May 21 news release that its governing board voted to consolidate the two testing windows into one and to cut down testing time. The changes also include reducing the number of testing units, and all modifications will be implemented for next year’s testing. For Cary District 26 Superintendent Brian Coleman, the news was welcome on several levels. The reduction in time – about 60 minutes will be cut from math and 30 minutes from English language arts testing – he said likely will bring some relief for both students and staff. Plus, the consolidation of the two testing windows will make the test logistically easier to administer. “I think it provides a much better balance of testing time versus instructional time,” Coleman said. “Less time testing means more time learning, and I think that was a concern being voiced by most districts.” Within District 26, and most others, the
“Less time testing means more time learning, and I think that was a concern being voiced by most districts.” Brian Coleman Cary District 26 superintendent students took the tests completely electronically, which Coleman said meant computer labs were at full capacity for months. “So only having one test will free up those labs for other instructional work,” he said. PARCC is administered to students in grades three through eight, and once in high school. For third-graders, the length of test time will be reduced to about 8.25 hours, compared to the roughly 9.75 hours students spent testing this year, according to literature provided by Illinois State Board of Education spokesman Matthew Vanover. The length of test time varies across grades, the literature shows, as do the reductions in time once the changes are realized. As for the single testing window, it will be a window of up to 30 days between the 75 percent and 90 percent marks of the school year, according to the PARCC announcement. “Most schools will complete testing in one to two weeks during that window,” it states. Comparatively, students this year had to sit down for testing on two separate occa-
sions, once at the 75 percent mark and again at the 90 percent mark. Prairie Grove District 46 Superintendent Phil Bender said that meant students were testing in March, then again only two months later. “So that piece, we’re really excited about,” Bender said. It was a sentiment also expressed by Fox River Grove District 3 Superintendent Tim Mahaffy. “The final assessment instrument ended up being two quite lengthy assessments very close together at the end of the year that measured different standards,” Mahaffy said in an email. “State testing and the makeups for those assessments can be very disruptive to an educational setting. And now it was happening twice during the year, rather than once with the previous ISAT assessments.” To him, the PARCC changes will free more class time for students and eliminate unnecessary testing time. Superintendents for District 300 and District 47, Kathy Hinz and Fred Heid, respectively, also made statements of approval. “While I recognize there are still concerns regarding standardized testing, I do believe these changes are beneficial and provide our district with greater flexibility,” Heid said in a statement. PARCCspokesmanDavidConnerty-Marin said results from this year’s assessment will be out come fall. High school results likely will come in October and results for grades three through eight in November.
JOHNSBURG – Mary Jo Farrell had few mementos from her father, a World War II veteran who died in an American hospital after spending three harrowing years in Japanese prisoner of war camps. But that changed last week when her father William T. Brewer’s lost Purple Heart – discovered by a family friend for sale on a Canadian dealer’s website – was returned, nearly 62 years after he died. “It’s kind of closure, I guess,” said Farrell, 64, of Johnsburg. “It kind of brings his whole life full circle for me. It’s something that’s tangible that we have.” The prestigious medal bears Brewer’s name, which was a shock to Kane Farabaugh, the Ottawa resident who found it online. Farabaugh – a documentary filmmaker with a penchant for finding military records – got involved with the search after talking to Farrell and her daughter, Megan Skelly of Ottawa. “Getting somebody’s information and finding something like this is a needle in a haystack kind of thing,” Fara-
See MEDAL, page A4
Matthew Apgar – mapgar@shawmedia.com
Mary Jo Farrell flips over a Purple Heart medal that displays her father’s name engraved on the back Friday in Johnsburg. Farrell’s father, Sgt. William Brewer, died when she was only 2 years old. A friend in Ottawa recently tracked down Brewer’s Purple Heart.
ANALYSIS
Rauner begins blitz of political ads as standoff persists By JOHN O’CONNOR The Associated Press SPRINGFIELD – The state Capitol was quiet Monday after the departure of lawmakers locked in a budget stalemate with Gov. Bruce Rauner. But the silence belied a cacophony of political ads the rookie administration is about to unleash on powerful legislative Democrats calling them an elite “political class” unwilling to
help the middle class. Republican Rauner previewed the video assault Monday, contending the state can’t find a financial footing without his proposed political- and business-climate changes. Democrats adopted a $36.3 billion spending plan they acknowledge is short on revenue by $3 billion and left town. They insist Rauner’s agenda for term limits, fairer political-district
drawing, a local property tax freeze and less-costly workers’ compensation insurance are unrelated to funding essential government services – those vital to the low-income and middle class. Rauner countered that his agenda is “intimately connected” with budget negotiations – his changes would stymie a “thriving political class of politicians and lobbyists monetarily dependent on the formidable House
speaker, Chicago Democrat Michael Madigan. “We’ve had financial instability in Illinois for years, for decades,” Rauner told WBEZ radio. “And it’s because our government is so full of conflicts of interest and so full of mismanagement.” A look at what might come next:
Q: What will Rauner’s ads look like? A: Rauner won’t confirm they’re
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Rink closing?
Postseason test
Court date set
McHenry roller rink to shutter unless repairs are made / A3
Huntley prepares to face nemesis Barrington in supersectional / C1
Judge in Hastert case donated to previous campaigns / B3
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in the can, but aides have suggested the main target is Madigan. Expect them to go beyond perceived recent inflexibility and to examine the Illinois Democratic Party chairman’s three decades as speaker. There was no immediate evidence Monday that TV stations had reserved time for Rauner ads.
See STANDOFF, page A4
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