Stan Karp writes here that high school exit exams are useless and discriminatory. They should be abolished.
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/31_03/31-3_karp.shtml
I’m inclined to agree. If a student has accumulated the credits she needs andpassedall the required courses, what is the point of an exit exam? If the exam is a standardized test, normedon a bell curve, the design of the tests condemns many students to fail, no matter what their high school record is. The failures will consist mainly of students with special needs, English language learners, and students who live in poverty.
Why not base graduation on performance in high school,rather than a standardized test that may have no relation to the curriculum?
Karp writes:
“In the last few years, 10 states have repealed or delayed high school exit exams. California, Georgia, South Carolina, and Arizona even decided to issue diplomas retroactively to thousands of students denied them due to scores on discontinued tests. Although 13 states still use exit testing for diplomas and policies are in flux in several others, the number is down from a high of 27 states during the testing craze promoted by No Child Left Behind (NCLB).
“There are several reasons for this retreat, including the research on exit testing, which clearly shows that exit tests don’t help the students who pass and hurt the students who don’t. They increase dropout rates and incarceration rates without improving college participation, college completion levels, or economic prospects for graduates in states that have them.”
Karp offers the horrible example of New Jersey, which is on track to make PARCC its high-school graduation exam, although it was not designed for that purpose and is certain to leave many students without diplomas.
He writes:
“Contrary to popular impression, there is no federal mandate requiring high school exit testing. Since No Child Left Behind was passed in 2001, federal law has required testing once during grades 9–12 in math, English language arts, and science. The Every Student Succeeds Act retains this mandate. But the decision to tie diplomas to the results of those tests is totally a state decision.
“There are real issues of inadequate preparation for many students leaving high school. But they are issues that standardized testing has helped create instead of solve. Test-based reform has undermined good education practice in numerous ways, narrowed curriculum, and wasted scarce resources.
“When I went to college many years ago, “college for all” meant demands for open admissions, free tuition, and race, class, and gender studies. Today it refers to bootstrap notions of individual preparation validated by test scores. Putting an end to high school exit testing would be a step toward expanding opportunity for young people and putting the focus back on the resources and supports needed to provide it.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I can honestly see both sides to this…On one hand Dr. Ravitch I can understand your point completely…It’s in the same way that why do aspiring teachers need to take Praxis content exam if they have gotten the required GPA in a particular content.
On the flip side (and I am not saying that I have a solution for this, but possibly a reason for the exit exams or even the Praxis pedagogy), too often teachers inflate grades and/or do not teach the information for a particular class. I have written on this blog before of colleagues of mine that were teaching a Pre-calculus class, but the material was not Pre-calc. Students got high grades in this class, but then had to take remedial math in college because the proper material wasn’t covered in the class. OR the situation where students openly admitted to me that their teacher just gave them B’s in their Alg I and Geometry classes in 7th and 8th grade (the teacher was missing out half the time and they rarely did math in the class)…no wonder they weren’t prepared for Alg II when they came to me.
I know what you and others are going to say – that we need administrators to do their job on observations and be honest in their evaluations, we need teachers to get better professional development, etc…So yes, when we have systems in place I think that doing away with end of year exams would be a great goal. And no, I don’t think that we need 100% of teachers to be observed properly, asked to leave the classroom if they are doing poor work, etc. BUT I do feel that it needs to be better than what we currently have.
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So even if you’re right and those kids didn’t really master pre-calc, what good would it do to make them fail high school and not get a diploma? You can barely even get a job without a diploma, forget college. What are those kids going to do with their lives? How does an exit exam solve your problem?
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Dienne – So, at the very least an exit exam allows a student to know before they enter college (and spend lots of money and go into huge amounts of debt), to address the situation, get support over the summer, and then graduate in the fall. As I noted in my post, I am not saying that preventing students from graduating is a good thing, HOWEVER, sending students off with inflated grades into higher education/jobs and having them have a false sense of having skills they really do not have is also NOT a good thing.
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The exit exams are tied to a much lower level of math then pre-calculus. In NYS, it is Algebra 1, in other states it is the math that is found on the SAT or ACT, or around 10th/11th grade.
Pre-Calculus is not the bar on high school exit exams.
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So, some high schools are raising the bar in terms of the level of math expected. As for my example of pre-calc, I also noted that there were students in middle school that openly shared how their teacher just gave them B’s for Alg I and Geometry. The point still holds…
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I studied geometry and algebra in high school and junior high school.
I have never used either at any time in my life. Why should they be required for graduation?
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Two thoughts Dr. Ravitch – I would argue that you may not have factored any polynomials OR been asked to prove any theorems, however you have used the logic that is found in Algebra and Geometry in your writing and your thinking. I was a math major who for years wrote for the college newspaper (and even had a couple of internships). Whenever asked why a math major should get an internship, I noted the reasoning in math (inductive and deductive) that was similar to writing articles..
Second – what IF you had decided to become a doctor or a profession that used math and HAD NOT taken it – would that have limited your options or choices in life? IF we did that so early on in ones life (yes, as early as high school) what paths are we eliminating for one’s future? I would also be concerned that serious tracking would occur – that those of color would NEVER be exposed to math or science, under the idea that they will “never use it” in their careers…I was a math major and taught HS math and there is PLENTY of higher level math I have never used since I took it in college. But the thought process and the rigor of passing those exams, I feel, made me a better teacher (not to mention having the feeling of struggling in math in college helped me better understand those that struggled with math in HS)
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Diane, I think you’ve probably been using both without realizing it. For example, if you ever figured out how long it would take to drive somewhere, you were using algebra.
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Nope, never. Figuring out how long it takes to drive somewhere is done by Waze, or when I do it, I use simple arithmetic.
I can’t remember looking for x since eighth grade.
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x = d / s, where d is distance and s is speed.
😉
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FLERP! thanks but I never did that. I say, well, if it is 100 miles to my destination, and I average 50 miles an hour, it will take two hours to get there. If there is heavy traffic, it might be three hours. Is that algebra? Feels like arithmetic to me, although I can see that it can be converted to a formula.
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Incidentally, you’re talking about college, but not every kid goes to college. Colleges have plenty of ways to screen their applicants – interviews, essays, placement tests, grades, letters of recommendation, etc. If they choose to admit students who don’t meet their requirements, that’s on them.
But what about kids who don’t go to college? You think they should be denied a diploma because some teacher allegedly didn’t teach pre-calculus correctly? How do you propose to support those young people who can’t get jobs without a diploma?
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“I have written on this blog before of colleagues of mine that were teaching a Pre-calculus class … no wonder they weren’t prepared for Alg II when they came to me.”
So because a few of the teachers did not follow the curriculum (I’m assuming there was one) then we need to construct this labyrinth/gauntlet of COMPLETELY INVALID standardized tests that all prospective teachers have to go through??? Seems like just a tad bit of overkill to me.
“BUT I do feel that it needs to be better than what we currently have.”
Ah, that great American mantra of “improvement and progress”. At the same time remember what David Coleman has to say about your “feelings”-“no one gives a shit”. (please take in the humor that is intended).
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High school grades are far more reliable in predicting college success than exit exams & the SAT or ACT. Grades show the student made a firm commitment to studying & learning. These exams have little validity in preparing students for advanced studies.
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About 30 states have mandated that high school students pass a civics test, prior to graduating. See
http://cs4.socialstudies.org/resourcesmain/new-item4/new-item
There is a national effort underway, to get this requirement in all states.
There are TWO national organizations (Joe Foss Institute and Civics Education Initiative) that have set a goal to have this requirement in every state in the next few years.
I am 100% for this. The exam (in most states) is taken from the same civics test, that is given to all foreign applicants for citizenship.
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Charles, I am all for everyone understanding our government and how it works. I am opposed to keeping high school seniors in school for the rest of their lives if they don’t pass a test.
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My wife is a naturalized US citizen. She studied very hard for that test. I told her, not to get too stressed. I told her that if she failed, she would not get deported as an undesirable alien. The test is not easy.
I do not see any benefit in keeping high school seniors in school indefinitely, either. However, there must be a “bar”, a standard, so that students have a basic proficiency, prior to graduating high school.
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Charles,
When I went to public school, we all took a required civics course. Passing that course fulfilled our graduation requirement.
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Yes, just because we lead the horse to water, i.e., provide the proper instruction so that a student may learn, doesn’t mean the horse will take a drink, i.e., the student will learn.
The question becomes, “Do we suck on the back end of the horse to make it drink?” or “How much should we “force” the student to learn-or probably better said, pretend to learn?
Mandatory forced training is not teaching and learning. It is a Pavlovian, Skinnerian nightmare for the student.
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The horse-and-water analogy applied to children learning in school is the reason that almost every country in the world except for the US and the UK has two high school tracks. One is academic and the other is vocational.
For instance, in Japan, even though the U.S. has been compared unfavorably to Japan’s high school graduation rates for decades, the U.S. public school critics (cons and frauds) never mention that only 70-percent of Japan’s high school graduates graduate from an academic high school that prepares them for college. The other 30-percent with HS degrees graduated from vocational high schools and enter the workplace after earning the vocational HS degrees. A few Japanese students graduate with both an academic and vocational high school degree.
Japan’s college graduation rate is about 50-percent but their college drop out rate is only 10-percent. This might mean that 10-percent of HS graduates who graduated from academic high schools changed their minds for whatever reason and never went to college.
According to Insider Monkey.com, the U.S. college graduate population is around 52 percent and that is higher than Japan.
http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/12-countries-with-the-highest-percentage-of-college-graduates-367584/?singlepage=1
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When I went to high school, I learned how to use a slide rule. Things have changed.
Richard Dreyfuss,the actor, has donated millions to a foundation, to assist public schools in establishing and expanding civics education. See
http://www.thedreyfussinitiative.org/
Almost everyone agrees, that students need to have an understanding of government. I would love to see more private foundations, and NGO’s cooperating with public schools.
Sadly, many children graduate from high school with very little literacy in civics and government.
The percentage of young people who vote, is ample testament to this fact.
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NCLB and Race to the Top increased the importance of testing reading and math.
Subjects like history and civics suffered.
Too much time devoted to testing and test prep is bad for civics.
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Utah started this last year. You can’t opt your children out of this test, because then they won’t graduate. It’s not a big deal, but I’m sick of standardized tests. And doing a multiple choice test doesn’t “prove” that kids know anything about the U.S. government. A good test taker can break down a test question and answer which one is the most logical. My son said that the test was beyond easy.
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IMHO, it is time for all WORKING “white” and “blue” collar classes to stand up for the rights of their children and grandchildren to have high school diploma after their learning and being tested annually from grade 1 to grade 12 BY their own teachers, NOT BY CORPORATE SCHEME of “looting public money” from working class parents through ENFORCING CORRUPTED and INVALID STANDARD TESTING on students.
WORKING People need to learn how to say “enough is enough” through withdrawal of their services = being on strike. Back2basic
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“. . .through withdrawal of their services = being on strike.”
Turning all commie pinko on us May???
(just funnin ya, hope all is well with you and yours)
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xxx
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Thank you for your joke. That makes me giggling because I escaped all commie pinko from VN, China, … I can smell them from far away, ha ha ha.
Thanks for your caring. xxx. May
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
I agree. It is time to move towards something more practical like:
1. Do they know how to complete a job application?
2. Do they know how to write a resume? How to dress for a job interview!
3. Do they know how to clean house? Wash dishes? Do Laundry?
4. Do they know how to drive? Change a tire? How to get the oil changed? Basic car maintenance.
5. Etc…the list is endless.
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You know, Dave, weren’t many of those things you listed our parent’s responsibility when we were growing up?
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I didn’t say we should be teaching them specifically but rather testing to see if they are capable of going out in to the world and fending for themselves.
If they are not capable of performing basic life skill then instead of being held back in high school, then they will be REQUIRED to join the military. They can chose the branch.
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“then they will be REQUIRED to join the military.”
Shanghai em, eh!
Can’t agree in any way, shape or form with that one Dave. I think there might be some serious constitutional issues to overcome with that policy, eh!
Considering the fundamental purpose* of public education as delineated in 20 of 25 state constitutions that give a reason for public education where does it indicate that the state should be telling it’s citizens how to live, learn, choose their own life?? Is it not the fundamental right of the parents to educate their child as they see fit? Even if what they see as appropriate isn’t to your personal liking, Dave?? It is not the state’s responsibility to determine, in contradiction to what the parents desire for their children (except in cases of abuse and neglect obviously). The LIBERTY of the person to be free from state coercion is constitutionally strong. To forgo that liberty as you suggest in the military service requirement is tyrannical at best.
I just can’t go there!
*”The purpose of public education is to promote the welfare of the individual so that each person may savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.” [my compilation and abridgement of those reasons]
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Or we can just do away with all standardized testing and that will solve most of the problem. Forever the ACT and SAT have been given as college entrance exams. They are just that, to enter college not graduate high school. If you cannot score high enough on those tests then you will have to find an alternative route through college if that is your desire.
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Happily about 1,000 colleges and universities no longer require either the SAT or the ACT.
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Yes, I know that is a growing trend. If they have a high school diploma, then they will take their money. They will test them on campus and place them accordingly, many in multiple remedial course that don’t count towards graduation.
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Agree with your first statement except I suffer no delusions that doing so would “solve most of the problem.”
And, no, the ACT & SAT have’t been forever nor ever anywhere close to having been used everywhere over time. And again they suffer all the same errors and falsehoods as any other standardized test used to assess that ever elusive realm of student learning.
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Also, if you test something, it will be taught to. (as we’ve seen with the ccss and the accompanying standardized tests)
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High school graduation should be based on the number of units of mandated course work completed. There is nothing to be gained by setting up another obstacle for poor students. Students must have have a high school diploma to move forward in their lives. An exit test would hit ELLs very hard, especially the newer arrivals, All an exit test does is enrich testing companies, waste money and discriminate against vulnerable students. If anyone believes that an exam in the native language would be helpful, you need to understand that many ELLs from poor or war torn countries have very limited reading skills in their native language. There is nothing to be gained from more roadblocks.
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So I do agree with you that accommodations need to be made for ELL or similar students (just as accommodations should be made for any assessment). What I find interesting is that so far no one has addressed my concern and a possible reason for having an exit exam…the fact that some teachers are not adequately teaching the right material
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We are over testing our young people today. Public education is under attack through a system of rigged testing sponsored by those that want to destroy public education. The testing companies are in on the plot. They know how to construct a test that many students will fail, and they will do so to feed the false narrative than public education is “failing.” In order to fail more students, they will simply raise the cut score. Pearson, a company that pays the right people, would likely get the contract, and they now have the GED contract. Take a look in Washington state with the New GED. Very few people pass the GED now, and they and their families will have a lower standard of living unless the breadwinner passes. There are similar results in other states. Keep in mind that failure may keep the student paying for more retesting, which creates more profit for Pearson.https://restoregedfairness.org/legislature-adds-insult-to-injury-to-struggling-ged-students
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No, you haven’t addressed my response. How does an exit exam help anything? If the teacher isn’t teaching the right material, why penalize the students by denying them a diploma, which is about the only way to get a job? How is that fair? How does anyone benefit from that?
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Dienne – I do see you point (that it is unfair to penalize a child for a teacher that didn’t do their job) but on the flip side, it’s also unfair to have a student get their HS diploma and think they earned grades and knowledge that they really didn’t, There are some students that will rejoice – hurray I managed to get out of HS – only to have it impact them later in life somewhere. As for the kids that don’t chose to go to college, well, what happens if an employer thinks that he or she has a certain knowledge based on a grade in a class, but in reality the child doesn’t have that knowledge. He or she will be exposed at some point.
I think that Charles said it best (or shared my sentiment) when he said: I do not see any benefit in keeping high school seniors in school indefinitely, either. However, there must be a “bar”, a standard, so that students have a basic proficiency, prior to graduating high school.
I too am not saying that a child should NEVER graduate, But I am saying there should be some standard or bar so that they show proficiency
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jlsteach,
Don’t you think that four years of passing required courses is a good testament of the students’ persistence and readiness to move on?
Why is it that my generation did well in the world without any exit exams at all?
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Dr. Ravitch, with all due respect, I ask a couple of questions – what is the population like in terms of high school students in your era vs today’s era? I think that makes a difference in terms of the number of students in high schools (in a similar fashion one cannot accurately compare the 1900s and today considering so many fewer were in schools). Second – normally I would say yes, four years of passing should be a strong mark – but as I have mentioned before, I have seen too many cases where kids have simply been passed (aka social promotion mentioned earlier). Seeing these situations made me sick to my stomach. It only impacted and hurt the same students when they were attending college. I cannot speak for every student in your era, but my guess is that there are some students there that were socially promoted that only realized later in life how their secondary education failed them – maybe it was when they attended college, maybe it was when they tried to and were hired for a job that they soon realized they were over their head.
Maybe having four years of passing grades should be enough…And as others have noted, I would not have a test that said they had to pass pre-calc knowledge (maybe Alg I or II) and yes. I think that such tests AND the SAT would be redundant…So I would get rid of the latter..
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Just because a teacher teaches material does not mean that students will be able to pass a test constructed by who knows who. I’ve taught students who just couldn’t master material no matter what I did. I don’t think an exit test would matter one bit.
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I did address that concern above, jlsteach. Your solution to a few teachers who do not follow the curriculum is to implement a high stakes exit exam for ALL students. Absurd solution! Sorry but that is ludicrous and risible on the face of it.
If at the post secondary level you find students who fit this bill, then deal with it at that level. Hell, every single K-12 teacher deals with “unprepared” (not the exact term I would like to use), “inadequate” students every single day and doesn’t think twice about it and goes about trying to help that student.
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NYS has the same five exit exams for all students; the students that do not pass these five exit exams fall into three categories: students with disabilities, students who have not mastered the English language (ELL) and students who are transient/impoverish.
Only 50% of SWD in NYS graduate HS within four years, and only about 30% of ELL students graduate within four years. As these students fail each of five exams, their education is narrowed to focus on only passing these five exams.
The regents exams have been a part of NYS education since the 1800s, the material is the material and the curriculum is the curriculum.
As for the teachers not teaching the right material, isn’t the curriculum approved by the district after being developed by the department for that subject?
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Requiring all students to take five Regents exams is fairly recent (Commissioner Rick Mills).
Previously only college-bound students took them.
Now everyone is expected to take them.
The theory was that raising standards would produce higher performance
The theory was wrong. But the requirement remains.
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So I did not teach in NYS so I have no idea…I was just stating an example of a teacher that I taught with in my urban school…I know of many teachers however that even if the curriculum comes from the district then chose to teach their own thing…on the days of observation they may do a dog and pony show, but otherwise they are left on their own without any consequences..
As for your first point – So I agree that accomodations or alternative routes besides teaching for students in these categories should be offered…however, the alternative should not be any less rigorous in expectations of explaining or understanding the material.
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This is a HUGE problem right now–insisting on all of these stupid tests to somehow “prove” that teachers are doing their jobs.
It’s a cop-out. The vast majority of teachers teach what they’re supposed it. Instead of taking weeks away from actual teaching, and vast sums of money to do standardized testing for the handful of teachers who aren’t teaching the core, then principals should DO THEIR JOBS and observe their teachers, and counsel (or fire, if necessary) the few who aren’t teaching the core.
It would save time, money, and stress, and give the vast majority of teachers the trust that no teacher gets these days.
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So, I will concede one point -you talk about the weeks of lost time – why not just have this one test at the end of the year (and yes, have it in all areas, not just math or literacy). AS many have talked about school during their days, in my high school days (I graduated in the early 1990s) my school had final exams for each class. Final grades were determined by the grades in each quarter and then the final exam (a mix of the exams). The final looked at information over the entire year.
I do think that there is a bit of redundancy that can be addressed – so that there is list testing.
as for the comment that, “The vast majority of teachers teach what they’re supposed it.” Consider – one teacher in one school that teaches 100 students per year. Then consider one teacher per district (I have no idea how many districts are in the US, but let’s say 300). So that’s 100 x 300 = 30,000 students, etc, etc. So, no the majority of teachers may not be doing this, but look at how many students are impacted on a yearly basis..
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The exit exams are to make students pay a price for teachers who do not teach to these tests. The math teachers are far more concerned that pre-calulus can pass for calculus–bad teaching– than might be true for other subjects. Have you seen an exit exam for poetry? for painting? for dance? Should there be an exit exam for every course to graduate from high school? I don’t think so.
One person said “You have used the logic that is found in Algebra and Geometry in your writing and your thinking.”
I heard that old saw when I was in high school.
I agree that math can be interesting but the formalities have little interest unless you must actively use them and they have real consequences.
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To jlsteach:
I appreciate the truth that you are concerned about.
What is the purpose or the ultimate goal of the basic learning?
Would you agree that there is ONE brain, but many synapses? We can have handful leaders, but countless followers. Please do not argue for the sake of successful university learners VERSUS failed university students.
IMHO, high school DIPLOMA is to give students the basic requirement to develop their curiosity to independently learn later WHATEVER they seem to be interested to learn MORE in their own career, own time, and own interest/hobbies.
There are two distinctive outcomes of any learning: to benefit oneself or to affect people’s well being.
Therefore, grades A, B, C and D and no F are to show the effort, interest and knowledge from learners whose outcome of learning ONLY benefits learners.
However, being passed (A, B, C, D) or failed will be implemented as the ultimate mark in order to show the learners’ ability and capacity of success or failure regarding to the outcome of a career that can affect people’s well being. Back2basic
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I am against these tests, but one point: the bell curve is not a function of the tests necessarily, but a function of abilities being normally distributed across the population.
For example, line up 100 kids and have them run a lap around the track. The result will be a bell curve distribution. That has nothing to do with the “test” of running a lap.
Same goes for math, reading, etc. So putting any exit exam out there will guarantee failure for some.
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“the bell curve is not a function of the tests necessarily, but a function of abilities being normally distributed across the population.”
You’ve got that backwards.
The tests are nothing but a bell curve function. If a question doesn’t fit into a bell curve response then it is thrown out. That bell curve function is used by the phrenologists, oops, I mean psychometricians as THE validating mechanism for a question.
Across nature, there is no “bell curve distribution”. There may be some that approximate that distribution but there are always “outliars” which in the psychometric testing world are conveniently erased.
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No, I do not.
“Across nature, there is no bell curve distribution”. There absolutely is. Batting average, marathon finishing times, golf driving distance, mathematics, reading, etc. Read the research of Robert Plomin.
Here’s something on the normal distribution of reading ability:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199201163260301#t=article
I agree that test items can be manipulated, but the underlying actual performance distribution in a domain is indeed a bell curve.
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“is indeed a bell curve.”
Those data approach/approximate a bell curve type distribution but never has a perfect distribution been found. Now the concept may be used as an underlying assumption but it is nothing more than that. As a descriptive device in explaining phenomena it “works” but one should realize the limits of it’s accuracy.
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From the article you cite:
“Evidence That Dyslexia May Represent the Lower Tail of a Normal Distribution of Reading Ability”
Notice the cautious language, that of the subjunctive and/or conditional (won’t get into the mess of which in English), of “may” (a probability) and not the indicative “does” which shows certainty.
So your example actually serves to buttress my argument.
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First, that article was 25 years ago, and there has been substantial research showing the same thing many times since then.
A perfect normal distribution, no, but the point is that it is a realistic and useful assumption to work with in education. Hence, it should not be a surprise when some students fail standardized exams, because they are ignoring the fact that there is a wide spectrum of ability in any subject.
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Matt,
Standardized exams are normed on a bell curve. A certain percentage will always fail, by design.
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“A perfect normal distribution, no” Which was my point.
“Hence, it should not be a surprise when some students fail standardized exams, because they are ignoring the fact that there is a wide spectrum of ability in any subject.”
Ummm, No, not because “there is a wide spectrum of ability”, it’s impossible to deny that. But the reason for when “some students fail” does not lay in that spectrum of abilities but in the determination by humans that certain scores on standardized tests are to be called “failing”. There is nothing natural nor even semi bell curvish that would indicate a “failure”. You are attributing a human construct to a supposed mathematical/statistical artifice that can’t and shouldn’t be attributed thusly.
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I don’t seem to be getting my point across.
Diane, I agree, but I am saying it is not the test that produces the bell curve. Give any sort of exam/performance task and the results will be in a bell curve without any norming. Norming just moves the top of the bell curve to 100%, but it does not create the bell curve.
Duane, correct that the human part is to determine what the passing mark is. But the only way not to have “failure” is to set the bar so low that everyone (even those at the bottom of the bell curve) will pass. The equivalent would be asking high schoolers what 2+2 is.
And so, my original point remains: an exam with any level of difficulty will produce a bell curve distribution, and assuming the test-giver does not put the passing mark at the absolute bottom, this will guarantee failure for some.
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Matt,
My point about the passing mark is that it is completely arbitrary. It can be set so high that everyone fails, or set so low that everyone passes. Where to set it is a subjective decision.
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Matt,
And I’m not getting my point across but if I may address a couple of your statements and then follow up with the most salient point in discussing standardized testing:
“Give any sort of exam/performance task and the results will be in a bell curve without any norming.”
False! In my classes the quizzes and chapter tests almost always come out with about 4/30 of the students getting above 90% of the points available, about 4-5/30 getting between 80-90% of the points , about 4-5 getting between 70-80% of the points, maybe 1-2 getting between 60-70% of points and then about 10-12 getting below 60%. (and those scores correlated almost perfectly with the amount of effort a student put into the learning) Now those are rough figures but basically held true over 20 years of teaching Spanish 1-2. And I didn’t norm anything to do with the tests. Now does that even begin to resemble a normal distribution? I’d say not.
So your argument doesn’t hold water in this case. Where it does hold water is with standardized testing were validity issues are tied to a question wherein the answers result in a bell curve distribution-they are “normed” to do so. In other words it is a construct of the test itself, not the “real” world.
“my original point remains: an exam with any level of difficulty will produce a bell curve distribution, and assuming the test-giver does not put the passing mark at the absolute bottom, this will guarantee failure for some.”
Again, I have shown the falsehood of the first part of the statement about “will produce a bell curve distribution”. Your concern about a test “will guarantee failure for some” is also false as I have also shown by the example. Where are the failures located in the class? There were none in my mind, as even the most unmotivated and uninterested learned something. And that is a success. It may be a small step, but it is one no doubt.
The nothing but, and only fact of the matter is that to use the label of failure (why is “F” the only letter with a word attached to it and why isn’t “E” used?) is a very human (actually inhuman) decision and all of the statistical machinations and supposed naturalness of a bell curve cannot change that fact.
By the way, Matt, do you have any idea when and how the concept of a normal curve came into social studies (I can’t call them social sciences, but that’s a diatribe for another time)???
Now to get to that salient point which I have posted here probably at least 4-500 times (hey, I’m a marketer at heart-ha ha) and that is: Noel Wilson has shown that due to all the inherent foundational conceptual (onto-episemological) errors and falsehoods, and the psychometric fudgings that occur in the standards and testing process render the process invalid, and then any and all uses of the results, by definition must be COMPLETELY INVALID. One cannot get around that fact.
If you have read Wilson’s work I’d certainly like your thoughts about it. If not please read and comprehend this seminal work:
“Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
For a summary and my comments please go back to about any post over the last 3 years that deals with standardized testing and scroll through the comments. Or if you want I can repost it.
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Diane,
Yes, I agree 100%.
Duane,
First, yes I’ve read Wilson’s work and tend to agree with it.
Here is why I think you may not always get a bell curve on some tests. Paper tests are artificial and are not a perfect measure of performance (hence the push for performance assessment). When you look at real-world domains, you get bell curves. For example, here are marathon finishing times:
Now say you did some kind of artificial test where you had people run on treadmills, or had people run in snow boots or whatever, and you could get odd results. But for performance domains where the playing field is neutral, you get bell curves (many sports examples – batting average, free throw percentage, golf driving distance, etc.)
The idea that ability is normally distributed across a population follows directly from evolutionary theory, and empirical evidence backs it up. Hence, I would argue that having bell curve results could even be seen as desirable, because that mimics how students would perform in a real-world setting (though that goes against the politically correct ‘everyone can achieve at a high level’ idea).
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“Why not base graduation on performance in high school,rather than a standardized test that may have no relation to the curriculum?”
Concur, sure seemed to work for me and many prior generations of high school students.
(But the reason why not is because you just can’t trust those lazy union thug golden parachute waiting fat cat teachers.)
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When I went to high school in Houston, there was no exit exam.
You just had to complete course requirements satisfactorily.
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God, how did anyone from previous generations learn ANYTHING without Common Core, fancy professional development, standardized tests, rubrics, standards, computers, phones, laptops….?????
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We obviously didn’t, Mamie!!
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I’m not going to do the Google research to find the names, links, and court case, but I recall that in California the high school exit exams came about as a knee-jerk reaction to a pro football player who was injured early in his pro career and he ended up taking the public college he attended to court for passing him and letting him earn a degree when he was illiterate. Without his grossly overpaid football career, he was just another illiterate living in poverty with few if any jobs available that would pay him a living wage.
To make a long story short, the court case revealed that the college football coaches paid other students to do his work for him so he would be eligible to play and help win games. The same thing happened in his public high school explaining how he earned a HS degree too.
Maybe someone else reading this will remember the case. That illiterate high school and college graduate won millions in that court case and the California high school exit exams soon followed. Originally, those exams were intended as evidence that every child earning a HS degree in California could read and write at a minimum of a 9th-grade level.
Over time, the manipulating misinformation squad of frauds and liars behind NCLB, RTTT, Common Core, etc. turned that test into a punishing monster that has little-to-nothing to do with evidence used as proof that a child who graduated from high school in California could read and write at a minimum of a 9th-grade literacy level.
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So, lots of folks have responded to my posts, but instead of responding to all of them at once, I will respond with one response here.
First to m4ptow – I was assuming you meant something about grades not really measuring what students understood. I do agree with you, that a high school diploma should be a sign that a student has met a certain amount of knowledge and that grades don’t have to be the solution/measure – however, I ask – what should be the measure – shouldn’t we know what students know? Also, I was not implying that all students needed to go to college, however I think it’s becomes a slippery slope when we start deciding who needs to be prepared to go to college and who doesn’t…(that could lead to tracking, etc)
To maime, who wrote: “I’ve taught students who just couldn’t master material no matter what I did.” – So, wow, I think it depends on what you are calling mastery – I may not expect all kids in my pre-calc class to get A’s, but maybe at least a C?
To many who saw end of course exams as adding to the coffers of testing companies – I get that, I do. One county that I know of had end of course exams written by the county office, written by teachers or former teachers. I think that this solves SOME of the problem – of course some may claim that having a county official create the test can lead to bias, etc. Personally, I think that this is a direction to go in as opposed to having an outside testing company create the test.
And to those that state our kids are overtested, yes, I get that – and if/when we solve this issue of teachers actually teaching the proper material, we may not need this check.
As for Lloyd asking if one case should overthrow things – I found it interesting that you brought up the case of the college athlete who sued…the university of NC is currently under investigation for allowing its athletes to take paper classes – where others may have written the papers – to graduate from college. right now I don’t have the time or energy to search every single situation, but I assure you that my example is not just the only one. I would venture to say that a similar example can be found in schools across the nation, over numerous years.
It’s a similar issue with the raising graduation rates – how many of those rates were gotten because kids did the equivalent of paper classes for credit recovery. Should the HS diploma be given just for showing up? Look, I understand about wanting to give kids hope – one of my first principals mentioned that sometimes all kids have is hope to go on. I am not saying that they can never graduate. I am not saying that there not be alternatives to taking a test to show their knowledge. What I am saying is that there have been repeated cases of fraud where kids are allowed to slide – which is why the end of exam came about. An over-reaction – possibly. And probably not the best laid out plans – but still it’s a reaction to a problem that does exist.
Finally, note that when I began this post – I said that I didn’t have clear solutions. But then some chose to attack my ideas, saying how far off I was, etc. All I can share from are my own experiences and those that I have heard from others.
Oh one last thought since Duane decided to chime in – his solution was that if kids were unprepared at higher ed that higher ed should “deal with it at that level. Hell, every single K-12 teacher deals with “unprepared” (not the exact term I would like to use), “inadequate” students every single day and doesn’t think twice about it and goes about trying to help that student.”
Right, that’s the way to solve a problem – just tell the folks up above to deal with it. You know how many colleges deal with this issue Duane – having students take remedial classes that cost money and are for no credit. Not sure if that’s the best way to deal with the problem. And as for K-12 teachers dealing with unprepared students, yes I did deal with those as well…but in addition to supporting the students that were unprepared and were in front of me (triage) I also wondered and thought about how one can help prevent unprepared students showing up in the future…Not very open minded of you if you think the answer to the problem is just to “deal with it”
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“You know how many colleges deal with this issue … having students take remedial classes that cost money and are for no credit.”
I attended a workshop at Cal Poly Pomona a few years before I retired from teaching. That workshop was about the remedial issue. Cal Poly has, I recall, three levels of remedial English classes that did not count toward college graduation, and about a third of the entering freshman had to take one or more of those classes and pass before being allowed to take the English classes that did count for college graduation.
The focus in that workshop was what could we do as high schools to get this ratio down. The large room was filled with English teachers from every public school district close to Cal Poly Pomona where I earned my teaching credential through a year-long urban residency.
There is no magic pill to remediate these children. No matter what high schools or colleges do to remediate these children so they don’t end up in remedial English classes at the college level, nothing works unless the child is willingly part of the process and that means the child has to change their habits and start reading outside of school.
And I am the perfect example of that. As a child, I was an avid reader by age 10 but I was a horrible student who preferred reading SF/Fantasy and historical fiction over paying attention in class and doing the homework. I barely graduated from HS with a 0.95 GPA due to grades based on classwork and homework. I did just enough work to squeak by, and if I hadn’t earned credit in the library where I worked as a student assistant and earned A’s for that time, my GPA would have been lower.
But during my HS years, I probably easily read somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 paperback books while avoiding my textbooks. It was easy for me to read one or two paperbacks a day and I had a job nights and weekends working 30 hours a week washing dishes in a coffee shop.
When I returned from Vietnam and got out of the Marines and went to college on the GI Bill, I didn’t have to take any of those remedial bone-head English classes because my literacy was at the college level.
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink the water. You can force a child into a classroom because that’s the law, but you can’t force that child to enjoy reading books on their own.
We do know what most if not all corporate charter schools do. They force, one way or another, these kids out so they get their education back at the public school if there is one left or the streets where an estimated 10,000 K-12 age children in New Orleans are getting their educations after the corporate charter schools in that city drove them out for not wanting to drink from the fountain of corporate education either.
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Lloyd – while I applaud your efforts and I agree that there is no one path for kids, I find it a little ironic that you think it’s ok to use your own story (one example) of a reason why we should not look at a particular thing, yet you chastized me when I used one example as a reason for it…Neither one example should set policy (however too often policy is set by just looking at one example)
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I’m sure there are other stories out there that explain why some children are not ready when they enter college. I did not use my personal example to define everyone else. It is all in the language. If my story sounded like I was using it as an example for everyone, that was not my intent. But when someone uses their own personal experience as an example for everyone, that is wrong.
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“. . .since Duane decided to chime in. . .”
YEP, because when I see using standardized tests as solutions for someone’s supposed problem, I’m going to chime in. Hell, when I see anyone proposing using standardized testing and the results supposedly gleaned from the tests for anything, I chime in!! And you, jlsteach, surely know pretty much that I will condemn such usage for the educational malpractice and logical insanity that standardized testing is.
Would you have expected any different???
Policies and practices, e.g. standards and testing regime, that are based on falsehoods and errors deserve to be and should be ridiculed to the highest degree.
“I also wondered and thought about how one can help prevent unprepared students showing up in the future…Not very open minded of you if you think the answer to the problem is just to “deal with it’”
Who are you to determine whether or not a student is “unprepared”. Perhaps a student may not have performed up to your lofty expectations but, hey, if they want to take a class and if they pay, why not. (and I know a good reason why not but let’s see if you can figure it out, jlsteacher, not including the college level teacher’s beefs about unpreparedness) At that point, yes indeed, it becomes your problem. Learn to deal with it. Oops not being open minded again about a college level teacher bemoaning the fact that their teaching gig may not be quite as easy as they would like.
Pobrecita, que la profesora tuviera que trabajar un poco más que quiera.
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Duane – La realidad is que los estudiantes pagan dinero para classes en que no puedan usarlo para graduation del universad (porque hay zero credits)…
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And the question then becomes: Is the only reason one might study at the university level is to graduate and/or obtain a degree? Obviously not! Each individual must decide for him/herself what the costs to obtaining a degree entail and whether or not they can afford the process. Is the university worthless without granting degrees to all?
I make no pretenses to having the answers to your questions in this matter. But I do have a lot of questions that hopefully serve to enlighten that there may be many other ways of looking at the problem besides from your personal point of view, and also in looking for different solutions. See, perhaps I’m not as “closed minded” as you might think.
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Certainly there are some that go to a university to take classes to increase their knowledge, and some can gain something from taking classes at a university without pursuing a degree. However, I would venture to say that the costliest and least valued degree out there is an ABD (all but dissertation) that many close to PhD students get. Second costliest would be those that start down a path to a degree, then cannot afford to finish in part because they had to take so many remedial classes which cost money at no credit. I cannot tell you the number of former students who have TONS of college debt (nearly as much as a year in tuition at least) and no paper to show for it – and when they apply for jobs that ask for college degrees (or could get higher salaries with college degrees) well…it’s not as if just taking a few classes counts.
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Hi jlsteach:
I am sure that you miss my question “What is the purpose or the ultimate goal of the basic learning?
Also, I suggest a reply to my own question as:
1) … no “FAIL” grade is to show that in basic learning in K-12, the effort, interest and knowledge from learners whose outcome of learning ONLY benefits learners.
2) high school DIPLOMA is to give students the basic requirement to develop their curiosity to independently learn later WHATEVER they seem to be interested to learn MORE in their own career, own time, and own interest/hobbies.
Thank you for your reply to my post that address to your attention. Back2basic.
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I agree, end high school exit exams!
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Using PARCC exam results as a high school exit exam is wrong, but should not be confused with subject-centered exit exams like the old NY Regents that measured what students are supposed to have learned.
The purpose of an exit exam is to ensure minimum mastery in designated subject areas as a condition for a h.s. diploma.
Standardized testing under NCLB, now ESSA, uses students as proxies for “the school,” i.e. teachers and staff, to disrupt public schools via turnaround, closure or privatization.
The pressure on principals to set data goals for promotion, pass rates, graduation rates, gpa minimums, AP enrollment rates, etc. has pressured teachers to pass students who have not met minimum mastery requirements or even shown up for class. Added to that are the pseudo courses, such as credit recovery, and inherently subjective course credit awards like “competency based education,” which have made it easier to boost graduation rates without principals and those with access to student records having to risk exposure for altering grades and entering credit in student records for courses never taken.
Diplomas based on social promotion and social graduation, like counterfeit money, have debased value and fool only those stuck with them.
For decades, out of empathy for students, many teachers have argued that it was unfair to deny passing grades, promotion and diplomas to students who were poor, had inadequate preparation, etc. The last three presidents with bipartisan, congressional majorities and their corporate and hedge fund allies have effectively hijacked these empathy arguments and turned them against teachers.
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Erich – I mostly agree with you – I definitely agree with you on the latter part (I would add in the idea of credit recovery – where students are allowed to easily make up material in a year that is often not at the same standard as a normal course just so that they can graduate). And I agree with you when you say. “The purpose of an exit exam is to ensure minimum mastery in designated subject areas as a condition for a h.s. diploma” – Exactly – NY had the regents exams…that showed a level of competency and expectations…
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“. . . the old NY Regents that measured what students are supposed to have learned.”
No they didn’t measure anything. They may have attempted to be an assessment, evaluation or judgement of what the student supposedly learned, but even then those tests suffer all the same foundational conceptual (onto-epistemological) errors and falsehoods identified by Wilson that render any results “vain and illusory” or in other words COMPLETELY INVALID.
No getting around those fundamental errors and falsehoods.
The most misleading concept/term in education is “measuring student achievement” or “measuring student learning”. The concept has been misleading educators into deluding themselves that the teaching and learning process can be analyzed/assessed using “scientific” methods which are actually pseudo-scientific at best and at worst a complete bastardization of rationo-logical thinking and language usage.
There never has been and never will be any “measuring” of the teaching and learning process and what each individual student learns in their schooling. There is and always has been assessing, evaluating, judging of what students learn but never a true “measuring” of it.
But, but, but, you’re trying to tell me that the supposedly august and venerable APA, AERA and/or the NCME have been wrong for more than the last 50 years, disseminating falsehoods and chimeras??
Who are you to question the authorities in testing???
Yes, they have been wrong and I (and many others, Wilson, Hoffman etc. . . ) question those authorities and challenge them (or any of you other advocates of the malpractices that are standards and testing) to answer to the following onto-epistemological analysis:
The TESTS MEASURE NOTHING, quite literally when you realize what is actually happening with them. Richard Phelps, a staunch standardized test proponent (he has written at least two books defending the standardized testing malpractices) in the introduction to “Correcting Fallacies About Educational and Psychological Testing” unwittingly lets the cat out of the bag with this statement:
“Physical tests, such as those conducted by engineers, can be standardized, of course [why of course of course], but in this volume , we focus on the measurement of latent (i.e., nonobservable) mental, and not physical, traits.” [my addition]
Notice how he is trying to assert by proximity that educational standardized testing and the testing done by engineers are basically the same, in other words a “truly scientific endeavor”. The same by proximity is not a good rhetorical/debating technique.
Since there is no agreement on a standard unit of learning, there is no exemplar of that standard unit and there is no measuring device calibrated against said non-existent standard unit, how is it possible to “measure the nonobservable”?
THE TESTS MEASURE NOTHING for how is it possible to “measure” the nonobservable with a non-existing measuring device that is not calibrated against a non-existing standard unit of learning?????
PURE LOGICAL INSANITY!
The basic fallacy of this is the confusing and conflating metrological (metrology is the scientific study of measurement) measuring and measuring that connotes assessing, evaluating and judging. The two meanings are not the same and confusing and conflating them is a very easy way to make it appear that standards and standardized testing are “scientific endeavors”-objective and not subjective like assessing, evaluating and judging.
Those supposedly objective (sic) results are used to justify discrimination against many students for their life circumstances and inherent intellectual traits.
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Duane,
Are there any situations where you see the testing of learning as valid?
How would you address the issues I raised: teachers pressured into giving passing grades to students who didn’t show up or did not demonstrate they had learned the material (please use any examples of material learned that you consider valid)?
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And by whom are the teachers pressured into giving passing grades?? Gee, nobody ever seems to talk about them!
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I’ve written about this before on my Crazy Normal blog and a few times in comments here. You just didn’t read what I wrote – for whatever reason. And here I go again.
I was a public school teacher in California for thirty years (1975 – 2005) and the pressure came from parents and administrators, who were pressured by parents and elected board members, to lower the ratio of failing grades and give passing grades to students that did not earn them. Teachers that did not do it were repeatedly called into the office to be lectured (I was one of the victims called in) and intimidated by administrators who blamed us for the high ratio of failing or low grades as if we were responsible for children that did not read outside of school, cooperate in class, or do the assignments, homework or classwork.
The children that complained the most about homework being too demanding and a waste of time their time were the children who didn’t do it.
Elected school board members don’t want to lose votes to irate parents that are mad because the parents blame teachers for their child who does not read at home or outside of school, do homework, class work, or cooperate in the classroom.
Here are a few posts from my Blog where I touch on this topic.
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Sorry, Erich for the slow reply, just now noticed you had a question for me. Was just rereading the responses and, for me, the type of back and forth, for the most part without too much acrimony is what makes this site so important for discussing and hopefully helping to come to fruition “a better education for all”. Be that as it may to answer your question.
I have no problem with local teacher in the classroom made assessments whether tests, projects, journals, etc. . . .
As far as teachers pressured into giving “x” grade. Well that is an administrative problem and I can’t trust the vast majority of administrators to handle the situation properly when the pressure is put on them to pressure said teacher. Most do not have the cojones to stand up and say “No, this is not happening.” (and that’s just my personal experience with what I call administrators, adminimals)
My first year teaching (I was 39 so I had already had a fair amount of experience in dealing with less than honest and ethical folks in the business sector) my principal came to me to ask about a student’s very low grade. The student was a daughter of a very influential member of the community. I showed the principal all the missing assignments, how she didn’t pay attention in class, etc. . . . He said that “we need to do something about the grade”. I told him that it was his prerogative to change the grade if he wanted, that I wouldn’t change it (other than to bring it out in public which wouldn’t have been good). I think my response stunned him as he stammered “No, no, we can’t (notice the mythical we) do that”. Well the student managed to turn in enough work right at the deadline to pass. They switched her from my class to the department chair’s. Didn’t make any difference as the same thing happened with the department chair.
Now how much did the student learn? I can’t say. But I believe that she learned, not only some of the curriculum, but that she perhaps wasn’t as “extraordinary” as she thought.
As far as student’s demonstrating that they learned the subject matter. Well, let’s just say I’ve seen many a student who learned a lot in class but couldn’t necessarily demonstrate it on a test, oral questioning or any other means of assessment. But I knew they were learning just by how they responded in class. Subjective evaluation? No doubt, but then all assessments are grounded in the subjectivity of the test maker. Try as psychometricians, educators, the general public may, they can’t get around that fact.
What I always considered more important for a student was not only effort but engaged effort to learn. And when a student engages themselves, immerses him/herself into the subject matter, they will learn as much as they desire. Who am I to tell them “it ain’t enough”?
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To Erich Martel:
IMHO, learning is a journey for life to people on Earth. The purpose of learning is to become INDEPENDENTLY civilized and contended (= enjoy learning). People should be self-respectful, responsible, honest, altruistic, and caring for the unfortunate.
The direct answer for your question is that testing to pass and fail learners/applicants is the way to exercise the power from authority/corporate/owners who pay the wages or hire applicants.
Regarding students in K-12, testing students from profit-driven standardized test scheme is completely wrong. However, to assess students’ ability to apply what they learn is absolutely different from to test them with a definite threat for their interrupted learning journey and their disrupted earning a DECENT living in the future.
In short, why should authority label children in K-12 as failure because the INVALID, INCOHERENT, and PROFIT-MAKING STANDARDIZED TESTS are enforced and imposed on both teachers and students? Back2basic
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I would disagree with your last statement – labeling someone a failure versus not getting a certain mark on a test – these are two very different things. If someone does not pass their driver’s license exam on the first try – as I did – no one labeled me a failure and I was never given the chance to try again. Rather, I got other support, and then went on to pass the exam on the second try. why doesn’t the same thing apply here?
I think my question – which was the one Erich and others have raised – is how do you know what your students know when leaving? We must asses in some form or fashion. Yes, I know, one can counter that saying they are assessed by their teachers, etc. However, as I’ve pointed out – these assessments are not always connected to the material they should be learning for a particular topic NOR are they always unbiased.
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Hi jlsteach:
I am glad that you are good at math = you have a logical mindset.
The truth about test is all about the power of the authority who exercises his/her own judgment or excuse to select candidate from their own standard of pass or fail.
However, in K-12, this basic learning should be free, and need to be directly assessed by TRANSPARENT and AGE-APPROPRIATE LEVEL curriculum that is well prepared by “nationally certified group” of credential veteran educators.
The focus point in this post is that according to Stan Karp, high school exit exams are useless and discriminatory. They should be abolished.
I completely agree with him (Stan Karp) as per my previous post’s reasons: basic learning, simple assessing, and basic working for a decent living. Back2basic.
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One final thought – I am sure that some of the tests in their current form and fashion are what Stan Karp says – useless, meaningless, discriminatory – for all of those reasons I can see why they need to be gotten rid of.
My responses (and some of others in this thread) have been ok, if you get rid of them, what replaces them? There are plenty of examples where students have simply been passed on and then been hurt by this…Should there be a basic amount of knowledge that high school students must know and if so, how is that measured (without bias)..I am not convinced that just leaving it to the teachers is the best way to go…
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“. . . is how do you know what your students know when leaving?”
I never knew what they knew when leaving. I couldn’t. I might make an approximation, but that assessment may or may not have been accurate.
You see, learning is not a bunch of discreet bits of information that can be inputted and then checked to see if it is there. What is learned comes and goes. At one point a student may “know” something, the next week not know, the following week not know, but then again the following know it again and then a month later not know, but a year later recall and know it. Learning is not a linear process by any means.
What constitutes knowing and knowledge is the key question and it is my firm belief that we really don’t have a clue as we can never enter the mind of a student and there really is no way to truly access that information “in” the student.
“. . . NOR are they always unbiased.”
They are never not unbiased.
Jlsteach, your infatuation with supposed objective assessment can only lead to falsehoods and error resulting in malpractices. To pretend any assessment is objective is a fools’ errand. (please don’t take that too harshly personally, you just happen to be one to express it here and you are only one of many who believe [falsely] that the teaching and learning process can be evaluated objectively)
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Well stated, May! Thanks!
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I think that I can see where the push for the exit exam stands. Although I do not agree with that method of seeing if students are eligible to graduate, in the most it has good intentions in trying to make it so that every single student can have one collective comprehension of the things that the system wants them to know before moving on.
The problem with this is that it does not consider the individual or the individual’s thinking. I agree that it does set up most students for failure by creating the notion that taking the test will ‘prove’ that they are ready to move on. Their readiness needs to be based off of their performance in their classes throughout high school, since they will be sharpening their skills in whichever way they learn. While some might succeed with just a test for assessment, other students might be able to exhibit the same level of higher thinking through a different medium. Whichever one students best excel in, should not be put down because it is not in the singular mode. If there has to be some sort of assessment that all high school students must take, then it has to be one that caters to their academic growth and success.
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I’m in a school in a district that is being investigated by our state’s department of education for a range of critical issues. Among the most serious violations is that students have been awarded diplomas who did not meet requirements for passing required courses and state tests. There has been evidence of institutional fraud that I have witnessed, including students’ grades being changed at an administrative level without the teacher’s knowledge or consent.
I have many students who cannot read or do arithmetic at an elementary level who are about to age out of the system after receiving passing grades in most of their classes, but who cannot pass the state tests to save their lives. It is a tragedy that the social promotion lives on despite the policies that are supposed to ensure that students learn to read, write and do arithmetic.
I heartily supported the first exit exams back in the 1980’s that tested exactly that on an eighth grade level. I don’t support the current generation of tests that desire to show that the students are college and career ready because they test skills that are greater than what is needed to live an ordinary life. No one does the tasks our state English test demands, unless he is a test designer.
If the tests were gone completely, who and what would ensure that diplomas were valid and that the students receiving them could actually read them?
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The state tests didn’t seem to have stopped the fraud. Corrupt administrators changed the grades.
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Or in some cases, as I have noted before, teachers have been the ones that have provided higher grades than students should have earned. However, as LH asks – “who and what would ensure that diplomas were valid?”
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The tests won’t and don’t. If teachers can’t be trusted to judge their students’ readiness to graduate, then our problem is far greater than testing.
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So yes I will agree with you that in some cases we have bigger problems than testing…However, I guess what I ask (and have asked before) is should there be no accountability?
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The argument about exit tests ( I live in NY and we have 5) is a misdirection from the real issue. School funding. Having kids get to high school and then failing a “gotcha” test and being unable to graduate is unfair to the students and society. If a society wants to insure a diploma means something and rigorous standards are applied, then apportion as much funding as required starting from pre school to have informal teacher assessments in small class size classrooms to make sure the child is making adequate progress. If a child is having problems, then there should be a multidiscipline evaluation to see what the problem is. A plan should be formed to provide whatever it takes to help the child to progress. The child should then be monitored. The attitude should be provide whatever it takes for this student to learn in whatever method helps him. (Universal design for learning) I believe if this is this is done, students will be competent in necessary (not necessarily college level skills) in high school. The reason this is not done is because the educational industrial complex doesn’t make any money off it.
This is my opinion based on my experience of 25 years as a school social worker in K to 12 settings and my experience as the mother of a child with learning problems and ADHD. Thanks to a change in graduating criteria in NY for students with IEP’s, she will be receiving a local diploma in June. She passed only one regents with a regents pass and 2 with a safety net pass. She couldn’t pass 2 history regents but the change allowed her to graduate anyway.
Lenore Grandizio
retired school social worker
On Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 10:02 AM, Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: “Stan Karp writes here that high school exit exams > are useless and discriminatory. They should be abolished. > http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/31_03/31-3_karp.shtml I’m > inclined to agree. If a student has accumulated the credits she needs and” >
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