Posted on 06/15/2003 5:05:11 PM PDT by demlosers
The guy failed, get over it and send him to summer school.
Considering the decline in the public school standards, I'll be disappointed if my son gets less than straight A's. Of course I'll be tutoring him in anything that he's having a problem with.
MM
Despite maintaining a ``B'' average, winning an award for ``most improved'' in his class, being captain of his football team and overcoming the challenges of a broken home and a reading disability, he didn't score high enough to get a diploma and graduate with his classmates.
The student's "B" average was evidently fraudulent, based either on his popularity (see football team, captain of), his membership in a protected, affirmative action class, or school-wide grade inflation. The whole point of standardized tests is to cut through all the above-mentioned forms of corruption, and get to the truth. Unfortuately, grade point averages are increasingly irrelevant.
Kearns' being "most improved," tells us how bad he was, not how good he is. Evidently, he cannot pass a minimum competency exam. His being captain of the football team tells us what about his academics? Ditto for having grown up in a broken home. And apparently the claim that he "overcame" a reading disability is a plain old fib, or he might well have passed the test.
``I don't think it's fair,'' said Kearns, who went to graduation anyway to be with friends. ``I know I could be up there if the MCAS wasn't thrown in our face.''
You know what's unfair? A popular dimwit thinking that he can trade on being a jock, to get a free ride academically. You're captain of the football team, kid, not captain of the debating team.
The (subtle) race-baiting comes in where the author emphasizes the lower urban passing rates. But he keeps that in the background, emphasizing the human interest angle, fibs and all.
The MCAS has been sued by class action, derided by student and teacher alike, is a usual bitching post in the letters to the editor of the Springfield 'Republican*' [*ironic, ain't it?].
And STILL it sticks! Mass is metamorphosing! Bulger is on the ropes, Mitt is gutting the hog, and Prop 2.5 is holding firm.
As a Massachusetts resident who supported the MCAS, so am I. Especially the opposition from the teachers unions. How can teachers object to holding back students who do not have the minimum required knowledge to graduate? Everything is upside down here. As much as it might inconvenience the kids, it is not in their best interest to send them into the world with a high school diploma when they clearly do not measure up to the standard.
I have two kids in the school system myself taking the MCAS tests. If they didn't pass those tests, I would definitely support them being held back a grade. I want my kids to get a real education.
Well, here in Florida, when the FCAT scores came out, it wasn't even subtle: black ministers held a demonstration calling for a boycott of Florida until the (black) kids who failed were granted a passing grade.
I'm glad the press found a dumb and lazy white kid who failed in Mass. This makes it clearly apparent that it has nothing to do with race. It's such an easy test it doesn't even matter if you're dumb, in fact. The bottom line is lazy: you don't study, you don't pass.
Anyone who can't pass it shouldn't be let out of the house, much less allowed to graduate from high school.
If he went to Burke, that is quite unlikely.
That's the purpose of an exit exam. EXIT exam. Exam. Exit. Get it? You pass the exam and then you may exit...
That's life. Sometimes you work hard but it isn't quite good enough. If he thinks high school is unfair, wait until he gets into college or business, if he decides to do so. I have found that no one is particularly interested in how hard I worked or how "fair" the process is. I am just expected to get the program or whatever working on time and without bugs. No one has ever congratulated me for making something that ALMOST worked. I had not thought about saying, "It almost works but I will not make it work because I think it is unfair that you want a product that works." Obviously I learned the wrong lesson when I was in high school.
I would like to see a copy of the test, but I bet the government is too embarrassed to let the public know the truth...
Holy moly. Now I know why the states are short on cash.
Kearns was one of some 4,800 seniors who didn't make the cut.
At one time just before the 1970's, the Jeremiah Burke High School was one of Boston's Exam Schools. One had to take a competitive exam to get into Boston Latin, Boston English, Boston Technical, and Jeremiah Burke. Anyone who could get into these schools would have no trouble passing the new MCAS exam to get out. One person changed all that, Judge Arthur Garrity, Jr. He forced busing on the City to move blacks out of local neighborhood schools. The Whites fled the public school system. The school system is in shambles. It still hasn't recovered after more than 30years .
The sad part about this story is that blacks were attending the citywide exam schools. At the time the city wide black population was about 12 percent. The black student population was between 5 to 10 percent in the exam schools. This was before Garrity screwed the city. Now the school system is about 60 to 70 percent black while the citywide black population is about 45 percent.
Another good deed by liberal activists that did not go unpunished.
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