The Fark.com headline sums it up well: "Problem: Thousands of New York teens may fail to pass regency exams and graduate. Solution: Lower the standards, of course."
Staring at the prospect of tens of thousands of members of the Class of 2004 failing to graduate next June because they couldn't pass toughened Regents exams, the state is faced with an unpalatable choice: stand firm or retreat.
Current rules, announced amid fanfare nearly eight years ago, call for raising cutoff scores on the five Regents exams required for graduation from 55 to 65, starting with this year's seniors. But testing results so far show that this could well threaten the diplomas of several thousand teens on Long Island, and far more than that statewide.
They've had eight years to prepare for raising cutoff scores from 55 to 65, and this is what happens? Boycotts, protests, and hemming and hawing from the state? And why do journalists keep protesting astonishment at the realization that exit exams, which determine who earns a diploma, will, if implemented, prevent some kids from earning a diploma? It's as thought no one realized until now that flunking the exam means losing out on a diploma. Did people really think that every single student would pass the exam?
One option under serious consideration by the Board of Regents would leave cutoff scores at 55 on selected exams, at least temporarily. Other proposals would go further -- for example, by averaging students' scores together, rather than risking not graduating because of failing a single exam.
"If kids in honors classes are having trouble, you know other kids are going to be in trouble," said Jessica McCaffrey, 17, a 12th-grade honors student at Sewanhaka High School in Floral Park.
Jessica, you have no idea. If students in honors classes can't pass an exit exam - on which they can start as early as ninth grade, by the way - then other kids are indeed in trouble. However, it's the school's administrators whose feet should be held to the fire. No honors student should have trouble passing an exam like this, unless schools are dumbing down honors classes beyond all recognition. If parents are having to hire tutors, the schools aren't doing their jobs.
About 12% of Long Island's students failed to meet the 65 passing standard, including - surprise! - a disproportionate number of black and Hispanic students. Well, by all means, then, let's remove the higher standard and cover up the fact that LI's schools are shortchanging those students.
It's not as though the Regents exams are perfect - far from it - and some of the proposed revisions, including one for averaging scores, aren't bad. But the extreme claims that are being made here - that so many kids have testing phobias, for example, or that these tests somehow disadvantage both honors students and underprivileged kids - are obscuring the fact that these tests aren't that hard, and the passing standards aren't that high. Historically, students had to answer about 65% of the items correctly in order to gain course credit. Now, a more sophisticated scaling system is used, but the passing score is still only 55 (or a proposed 65) out of 100, which suggests that students are still required to answer only a slight majority of the items correctly (give or take some adjustment for form difficulties).
Information on the English exam can be found here. US History and Government, here.
Will New York hold fast to the increased standards (which are equal to what students have always needed to obtain a Regents-endorsed diploma, and far below what students would need to obtain college course credit for the material)? Or will they give in and keep the standard at 55%? The problems with the exams, most notably for Physics and Math, cannot be ignored - but that doesn't mean that the concept of using Regents as an exit exam is flawed beyond all belief, nor does it mean that standards cannot be raised.
Posted by kswygert at September 2, 2003 10:01 AM