Maryland is nearing the finishing line in setting a high school exit exam requirement in stone, and the local teachers' union has tossed its hat into the ring in opposition:
The Maryland Teachers' Union is joining other education groups in a last-ditch effort to oppose the state's plan to make passing standardized tests a requirement for graduation.
The union president said there's much more to learning that can't be assessed by a single test, 11 News reported.
Oh, yes, so much more. Because, as we all know, exit exams tend to assess nuclear physics and organic chemistry, rather than (usually 10th-grade-level) basic reading and math skills.
Looking further, though, I'm wondering why they're bothering with this last-ditch effort. The Maryland BOE voted last year to implement the exit exams:
Maryland's Board of Education has approved a plan to require students to pass the state's High School Assessments in order to receive a diploma. The requirement begins with the class of 2009, making Maryland the 19th state to adopt an exit exam...
The new plan calls for high school students to pass tests in algebra, English, government and biology to receive a full diploma. State School Superintendent Nancy Grasmick has proposed providing alternative diplomas to students who pass less than four of the exams or who have disabilities. Some board members said they have concerns about such a tiered system, however; a revised version of the plan will come before them in May.
Some board members who voted in favor of the graduation exam said they were doing so reluctantly. "We've never generated the reality of what will happen when we do this," said JoAnn Bell, the board's vice president. "We are going to lose kids."
Work with me here, Ms. Bell. You're going to "lose" kids who spend four years in high school without mastering basic skills in algebra, English, government and biology. These are kids currently in seventh grade, so it's not like they're not forewarned. All the school can do is teach the classes well, and give the tests. Some kid will fail them. This doesn't mean the tests will have blocked them; it will mean they never learned the material, and thus won't have some necessary skills for success later on.
The Washington Post has more on the "last-ditch" efforts:
Critics worry that schools might place too much importance on the tests and that students who think they cannot pass them might drop out. For the past two years, high school students have been required to take the Maryland High School Assessments, but results have had no effect on their graduation status.
Do these same critics also constantly fret that the existence of grades for high school classes are too "important" and might make kids drop out? We're talking about the same thing here. High school students already have to write papers and cram for tests. Sure, there's grade inflation to prop up the lazy, but to hear these critics complain, an exit exam is the only high-stakes academic situation students will encounter in their four year.
Preliminary results of a study on exit exams in six states, to be released next month, show that "there's nothing in those tests that it would be unreasonable for a high school graduate to know," said Michael Cohen, president of Achieve Inc., a nonprofit group that helps states improve and coordinate testing efforts. Cohen outlined Achieve's study findings at yesterday's Maryland school board meeting.
Under the state's plan, students can fail one or more tests as long as they earn a passing score when the results are added together. They can take the tests several times.
The maximum score on each exam is 800, and students must receive a combined score of 1613 on all four to get a diploma. However, there is a catch: Students will not receive a diploma if they score lower than a minimum target -- yet to be set by the board -- on any of the tests.
So, they can retake many times. They can pass separate exams on separate takes. And they have to score, on average, a little over 400, or 50%, on each exam. To the union member who said, "there's much more to learning that can't be assessed by a single test" - you're right. With standards this low, this test might not be assessing much of anything.
And yet, the hysteria continues:
Elliott Wolf, a Montgomery Blair High School senior, told board members yesterday that the exams could have a devastating effect at his school, where about 10 percent of the students last year spoke limited English. None of them passed the English portion of the 2003 state assessments, according to state records. "These tests are . . . badly implemented, and the students are suffering as a result," he said.
Hm. So we have to take the word of a high school senior that the tests are badly implemented. Why? Because they're given in English? It's not surprising that limited-English proficiency students had trouble with them; it's absurd to say that English tests are "badly implemented" for people who don't know English.
It'll be up to the state, or individual districts, to decide how to deal with recent immigrants who haven't had time to learn English. But everyone who is currently in Maryland's seventh-grade classes has been warned - learn English within the next five years. I don't think that's a "devastating" requirement.
Posted by kswygert at May 26, 2004 03:06 PM