It’s story problem time. Please get out a No. 2 pencil and remember to show your work. Begin:
Ann will be a high school senior in 2016. In order to graduate, Ann will have to take the current test used to measure her proficiency as well as a new test based on the new national common core standards that will be used to determine if Ann is ready for college. State schools superintendent Randy Dorn wants the Legislature to drop the current test and use the new test starting in 2016, saving the state $30 million over the next two-year budget cycle. Dorn also doesn’t want to make passage of the test a requirement for graduation. Meanwhile, the state Board of Education isn’t sure it wants to drop testing as a graduation requirement, but does want to drop as a requirement that high school seniors pass a biology exam to earn a high school diploma. Instead the board wants a more comprehensive science standard for graduation.
How many bottles of aspirin will Ann, her parents and her teachers go through waiting for state officials and the Legislature to settle on a method to measure student achievement and determine if Ann and her fellow students are ready for college, work and life after high school?
Dorn’s concerns about administering two tests to students are understandable. These tests are time-consuming and nerve-wracking for all concerned, particularly the students. Expecting them to take two sets of tests — even though they only have to pass one of them to graduate — is unreasonable. That’s not to mention the amount of classroom time two sets of tests will steal from students and teachers. If dropping one of the two tests can save the state $30 million, all the more reason to do so.
Dorn would rather that the new common core test be administered in the 11th grade, allowing the results to show where a student needs remediation during his or her senior year. But Dorn doesn’t want the test result to be used as a graduation requirement.
We disagree. Testing should always be used as a tool that shows where a student and teachers need to concentrate further study. But a certain level of proficiency on a test, when combined with a student’s overall record of achievement, ought to continue to be used as a graduation requirement.
Likewise, a comprehensive science standard makes more sense than a biology test alone.
But can we stop moving the target every few years for students and teachers? How long ago was it that the WASL was the final word on testing?
At some point, state officials, education experts and the Legislature need to settle on a testing standard and a method of measuring proficiency and stick with it.
If we can’t do that for our students, we’ve fully earned a failing grade.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
