Posted on 01/12/2010 5:24:11 AM PST by reaganaut1
A law adopting statewide high school exams for graduation took effect in Pennsylvania on Saturday, with the goal of ensuring that students leaving high school are prepared for college and the workplace. But critics say the requirement has been so watered down that it is unlikely to have major impact.
The situation in Pennsylvania mirrors what has happened in many of the 26 states that have adopted high school exit exams. As deadlines approached for schools to start making passage of the exams a requirement for graduation, and practice tests indicated that large numbers of students would fail, many states softened standards, delayed the requirement or added alternative paths to a diploma.
People who have studied the exams, which affect two-thirds of the nation’s public school students, say they often fall short of officials’ ambitious goals.
“The real pattern in states has been that the standards are lowered so much that the exams end up not benefiting students who pass them while still hurting the students who fail them,” said John Robert Warren, an expert on exit exams and a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
“The exams are just challenging enough to reduce the graduation rate,” Professor Warren added, “but not challenging enough to have measurable consequences for how much students learn or for how prepared they are for life after high school.”
In 2008, state officials in Alabama, Arizona and Washington delayed the start of the exit exam requirement and lowered standards after seeing that many students, including a disproportionate number of minorities, would fail the tests.
Many states have faced lawsuits over the proposed requirements amid accusations that the tests are unfair to students with disabilities, non-native speakers of English and students attending schools with fewer educational resources.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
They weren’t low enough already??
NJ did the same thing. They have a two tier system of testing for graduation.
The questions on the lower achieving test are pathetically easy and even so there is a struggle to pass.
The problem is you can’t make people equally smart. You can only make people equally dumb and that is what you get when you focus your educational system on the equality of results.
Vo-tech schools and service jobs exist for a reason. The concept of universal college education is ludicrous. Plus, people can be very successful in the trade occupations and not have 4 years of loans to pay back.
As we race to accomodate the lowest common denominator, our competition continues to strive for excellence. You won’t find engineers, doctors and other professionals from India, China, Russia, Indonesia, Japan, Tibet, Nigeria, and even Somalia who got their education by being the worst student in class.
Am I the only one who sees a very bad result coming in a decade or so; from this whoring of our education system?
We need to just end public education.
.
...call it Slavery!
I always thought theat the Final Exams in each subject determined a pass or fail. Instead of “lowering” the standards for the students how about “RAISING” the standards for the teachers.
It's a form of elitism. It's their way of saying, you poor dears, you wish you were like us, don't you? You wish you had a college degree and were smart like we are. It's also political. College validates and preaches liberalism, so it's in the best interest of liberals to have more people go to college. Finally, college has nothing to do with merit. Something is true because the professor says it's true. It's an authoritarian system--perfect for liberalism.
The hard sciences require college education. Liberal arts education is a complete waste of money and time. You want a liberal arts education? Get a library card. It's cheaper, and you won't have to take gym.
Agreed. The result is more taxpayer funding for tutors for those in college who aren’t up to speed. So we’re paying twice for a system that flat-out doesn’t work. The lib response? Instead of actually educating students they want to lower the bar so everyone can pass. So the students who really suffer are those whose parents can’t afford a private school. Nice educational system, right?
When you discuss the 69% Vs 70% now you’re getting into the whole PC BS where you can’t have winners and losers. In the game of life you have both and you either cut it or you don’t.
That being said, the way the schools work they will continue to lower the score, 1) to make them look like their doing better, 2) for the whole PC BS “feel good” effect... you don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
There should be one standard for all high schools based on Reading (the CONSTITUTION), Writing & Math. All exams should be OPEN BOOK. Life isn’t about what you memorize..
As sad as it sounds, I wish I wouldn't have graduated.
Not taking the blame off of myself. But there were 12+ college-educated teachers at that school that looked at my transcript and said, “he is ready to take on life.” I know I am not the ONLY story like this too. I've been in Germany for 2 years and have a German friend who happens to be a school teacher. Every conversation I have with her about her class leaves me dumbfounded. The young-adults she teaches HAVE to study and to try and are -get ready for this- EXCITED about learning. If we changed our public school systems to the way Western Europe conducts it's schooling there would be 80% of the High School population on the streets in a riot.
I think anyone would agree that there is a definite problem with the public school system. And it seems to me this new trend won't do too much to help. —I hope I'm wrong.
Thanks for reading, FREEPERS!
Fair is a nebulous word. For all groups to pass in equal numbers, the standards are effectively no standards. When there are no standards and no risk of failure, there is also no reason to excel.
100 years from now, urban public education in these United States of America will be viewed as one of the ugly scandals of our history. Colossal and ever-increasing sums of money are spent by totally unaccountable bureaucracies to produce an end product that can only be made remotely palatable by continually re-defining downward the expected results of the cheated students who actually emerge from “the system”. 50 percent urban dropout rates hardly even merit mention in the media. No matter how pathetically poor the results, it is NEVER the fault of the teachers or the educational bureaucracies or the system; responsibility and blame are always foisted off upon others.
What REALLY steams me, is the total silence on the part of public education organizations like the NEA with regard to this embarrassingly sorry state of affairs. They mobilize unlimited amounts of money and manpower to campaign for increased compensation, improved benefits and ever stricter work rules. No expense is spared fighting against even the suggestion of any performance or accountability standards. But I can’t for the life of me remember even a single press release expressing the least concern about the oppresively obvious plight of our urban public education institutions, much less any initiative on their part to improve the quality of the product their members are paid so handsomely to produce.
It’s a total and unambiguous travesty.
How many idiots can there be?
Some say it’s one out of three.
If you need to here it from me.
You’re the Dee de-dee.
Life is not fair. Giving people a diploma when they haven't earned it won't solve any problem. It just delays life's disappointments for a short while.
They tried that a few years back, in Massachusetts of all places! Over 60% of the new teachers flunked the basic knowledge test!
Seeing the abysmal results, the governor wanted to make sure those already teaching in the schools weren't of the same quality, but the teachers’ union howled to prevent it.
I don't know if they still test new teachers for competency or not.
December 29, 2009
Dear Ministers A,B,C,D, and E,
The Hispanic children with whom I am associated are very intelligent and motivated, yet, I am very concerned about the appalling reading and arithmetic skills that I find during the Tuesday night tutoring sessions. One child ( about 12 years old) is completely illiterate and innumerate. Nearly all the children struggle with reading. All of the children are grossly delayed in learning their math facts.
Of the children with whom I have worked, all have a poor grasp of phonics and none ( regardless of grade) have mastered basic math facts ( addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). To compound the problem, their homework requires mastery of these basics even though the children have not mastered them!
If it is child abuse to send a child who cannot ski up to the top of a mountain and push him off onto a double black diamond trail, then it is child abuse for a public school teacher to assign homework to a child that is utterly impossible for him to complete. The frustration, guilt, and depression on these children’s faces is plainly evident. Every day in school and every evening at home with homework must be a minor hell of despair for them. Why would we be surprised that too many drop out at the first opportunity?
On Tuesday before the Christmas school holiday, I helped a girl with the addition of mixed fractions. This was her formal homework assignment for that day. How is it possible for a child to add mixed fractions if she has absolutely NO idea what the denominator or numerator of a simple fraction represent? How can she find common denominators when for mulitiplication and division she needs help drawing lines and dots on paper for her to group? How can she convert improper fractions to proper fractions and whole numbers when she adds and subtracts with her fingers and can not carry a value from the ten’s column to the one’s column? In other words, the assignment sent home for this child was **impossible** for her to understand. She told me that she is given homework assignments like this every day! This child is literally being pushed off a double black diamond educational mountain every day when she is not even a beginner. I call this child abuse.
What I am witnessing is SYSTEMATIC EDUCATIONAL MALPRACTICE and CHILD ABUSE!
I suggest that the following begin IMMEDIATELY:
· These children need a DAILY ,SATURDAY, VACATION, and an ALL- SUMMER afterschool educational program in highly structured and systematic phonics.
· DAILY drills in math facts.
· Appropriate rewards, certificates, and ceremonies to recognize the 100% mastery of specific levels of achievement in phonics and math facts.
· The children MUST NOT MOVE ON UNTIL THEY HAVE MASTERY OF A LEVEL!!!
· The older children must have 100% mastery of the fundamentals of arithmetic before moving to fractions. Each level of mathematics needs 100% mastery if there is to be any success on the next level.
· The parents must be instructed on how to create a learning centered home with TV, DVDs, I-pods, games, and Internet completely restricted until the child fully completes his weekly assignment goals. These goals must be rational and achievable.
· These children will need volunteers to pick them up and take them home from any afterschool program. Many of their parents are working more than one or two jobs and it is likely that many would find it impossible to bring their children to an afterschool program. Some may need tutoring in their homes.
Long term solution would include a combination of the following:
· Totally restructuring the public schools.
· KIPP charter schools or something similar.
· The church opens its own private tuition-free schools.
Although the Tuesday evening tutoring program is functioning as best as can be expected under the circumstances, it is far too little to do much good. It is like aiming a water pistol at a raging forest fire. The futures of these children are literally being burned up in slow motion. These children need INTENSIVE and SYSTEMITIZED INTERVENTION!!! They need it IMMEDIATELY!
The problem is a failure of the school to teach phonics in a systematic and rational manner, and a failure to demand that children master the basic levels in math before moving forward. It is a failure of the schools to properly group these children into an appropriate levels of mastery. It is a failure of the schools to assign the appropriate skill level of homework to these children.
Please forward this letter to those in the church and community with the authority to make a serious change. Children should never be neglected and emotionally abused in this manner.
Respectfully,
Wintertime
In other words 94 is A and 93 is B, so there is little difference and 93 should be an A. The fastest runner in the race won in 9.3 seconds but the next fastest runner came in 9.4 and there is little difference so he should be declared the winner also.
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