An interesting article on educational standards from the NY Times. Jeff --------------------------- http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/15/weekinreview/15ZERN.html April 15, 2001 Why Johnny Can't Read, Write, Multiply or Divide By KATE ZERNIKE "The book I would like to write about is called "Of Mice and Men" and there were two main real characters but the character I want to write about the character his name is Lenny, he really issn't the main character of the book "Of Mice and Men." But in the story he played a keyrole. Lenny wassn't the smartest person but he was a real good worker. But nobody really listened to him cause everybody thought that he was stupid, but Lenny is just a little slow so nobody would pay attention to Lenny everybody would make fun of him. THIS stew of misspellings and bad grammar was composed recently by a Massachusetts high school student. It was an answer on the state's new graduation proficiency exam, which, starting this year, everyone must pass to earn a diploma. The student had been asked to identify and explain the importance of a secondary character in a work of literature — or, in the words of another future grad, a "charicter" in a "storey." The excerpt above met the criteria for "proficient," and Massachusetts is considered to have some of the most rigorous high school standards in the country. State education officials, reacting to complaints that the test was too hard, posted this and other examples of student work on the state's Web site to show what it takes to pass the new test. The answers (at www.doe .mass.edu/mcas/student/2000/) range from amusing (one high-scoring student cited a James Bond novel as "literature") to alarming (44 percent of those who passed did not know that 21 is 75 percent of 28). Taken as a group, they expose the dirty little secret of the standards movement sweeping the country: schools may be demanding more of students, but they still aren't demanding much. Most of the high school graduation tests are actually written to 10th-grade standards, "but most people would be hard-pressed to say this is what a 10th-grade education should look like," said David T. Conley, a professor of education policy at the University of Oregon. Still, he said, "Even starting out with low standards, just putting them in place has been a tremendous shock to kids who can't even do ninth-grade work." Most of the 28 states that now have graduation exams actually give them to students in the 10th grade. They do so for fear of lawsuits, since the courts have ruled in several cases that students must be given several chances to pass the test. This means that tests assessing a "high school education" really measure a 10th-grade education. And since the states set fairly low bars for passing, that level more accurately reflects what an eighth grader should have learned. States are well aware of this. Michael W. Kirst, a professor of education at Stanford and a member of the board that determined that the California exit exam should be given in 10th grade, said the panel was told to set the test to the standards for seventh and eighth grades. In the recent court case charging New York State with shortchanging students in New York City, the state defended itself by arguing that all it had to provide was an eighth-grade education, because that was what was needed to pass the Regents Competency Tests. Most states require anywhere from 18 to 24 course credits as well as the test to graduate. But there is no telling how rigorous those courses may be. There are still more states (29) that require physical education for high school graduation than there are those that require algebra (13) or biology (8). "I'd stress that it's higher than it was before," said Wayne Martin, director of the state assessment center for the Council of Chief State School Officers. New York State is raising the demands on new Regents tests, and North Carolina is now phasing out a graduation exam that was set at an eighth-grade level. Under its "Passport" tests, Virginia used to test students for graduation at the sixth-grade level. Recognizing that this was a passport to little more than seventh grade, the state is now phasing in tests that will be taken at the end of high school courses in six subject areas. Partly, the defining downward of competence reflects the fact that a state politician wishing to remain in office might prefer a test that graduates a lot of students, rather than one that genuinely assesses how well schools are doing. In Nevada, Professor Conley says, the state simply looked for what cutoff score would allow about 80 percent of students to pass, and set the passing mark there. In Virginia, parents and teachers recently pressured the state into softening the standards needed to pass the tougher new tests, because even state officials conceded that they were so high that few students could meet them. BUT there is also a concern for students' self- esteem, as well as a reluctance to prevent anyone from going to college. "The European system is quite comfortable saying not everyone is going to get to the higher standard, not everyone is going to go on to higher education," Professor Conley said. "We're not comfortable with that." The Education Commission of the States, a nonpartisan research group based in Denver, and several universities are pushing a project known as K-16, an effort to ensure that state proficiency tests measure whether students know enough to take college freshman courses. This would make them roughly like the competency tests universities administer to entering classes. As envisioned, the tests would demonstrate whether students could infer and synthesize — skills those working on the K-16 project say are not required to pass the current crop of graduation exams. "A reasonable standard for the 21st century is that if you can't go on to further education, you're going to be severely handicapped," Professor Kirst said. "If you can't do work at a community college level, that's a pretty good standard for saying you shouldn't be able to graduate from high school." At the very least, advocates for higher standards say, states should resist the pressure to loosen the standards in place. "This is a minimal standard that our higher education and business communities are telling us they can work with," said Alan Safran, a deputy commissioner of education in Massachusetts. "These kids can't make it with anything less." Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information -- Jeffry P. Ricker, Ph.D. Office Phone: (480) 423-6213 9000 E. Chaparral Rd. 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