Posted on 06/15/2003 5:05:11 PM PDT by demlosers
BOSTON (AP)--Four attempts. Two points shy.
The numbers plague Karl Kearns, a senior at Burke High School in Boston. This was the first year in which seniors statewide were denied diplomas if they failed the state's high school test, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exam, or MCAS.
Kearns was one of some 4,800 seniors who didn't make the cut.
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.
``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.''
MCAS, given annually since 1998, is a key part of the state Education Reform Act of 1993, which established mandatory levels of funding for all schools. It was enacted in response to a ruling by the state Supreme Judicial Court that Massachusetts had a constitutional duty to adequate fund all public school districts. State spending on public schools has since jumped from $1.6 billion to $4.1 billion this year.
While 92 percent of Massachusetts seniors have passed the tests, the new requirement has hit some schools particularly hard.
The city of Lawrence is graduating less than 60 percent of its 437 seniors, the lowest passage rate in the state. In Chelsea, 64 percent are passing. In Springfield, it's 69 percent, and in Fitchburg, 74 percent, not including handfuls of recently awarded waivers.
In Cambridge, home to Harvard University, slightly more than three-quarters are passing.
Overall, 94 percent of seniors in suburban schools have passed, compared with 79 percent in city schools. About 30 percent of Hispanic and 25 percent of black seniors have not passed, compared with 6 percent of white seniors and 10 percent of Asians, according to Department of Education statistics.
Even before this year's tests, parents organized against MCAS, teachers were suspended for not administering the test, lawmakers held hearings and student boycotts were common.
Former Gov. Paul Cellucci once ducked students who stormed the Statehouse to challenge him to take the exam and lose his job if he failed. Cellucci declined to take the test.
But Massachusetts Education Commissioner David Driscoll said the 92 percent success rate eclipsed even the state's prediction.
``The sheer numbers have driven the opposition almost underground,'' he said.
Other states also have struggled with high-stakes testing.
About 2,500 protesters gathered outside Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's office in May to demand he suspend the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. Beginning this year, Florida high school seniors must pass the 10th grade exam to receive their diplomas. Statewide, more than 43,000 third graders and 14,000 12th graders didn't pass.
In California last week, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said that making students pass that state's new exit exams before they can graduate should be delayed until 2006, because there is mounting evidence that thousands of students can't pass it. The graduation requirement was supposed to begin with the class of 2004.
A federal education act signed by President Bush last year requires students in grades three through eight be tested annually in reading and math.
School boards around Massachusetts toyed with the idea of handing out diplomas regardless of whether students passed MCAS but backed off after Driscoll warned that principals and superintendents could lose their jobs and districts would lose state funds if they defy regulations.
Judges in both state and federal courts have refused to block enforcement of the MCAS requirement.
Documents called ``certificates of attainment'' are available for students who meet local graduation requirements but don't pass the MCAS. But a diploma is needed to qualify college-bound students for state and federal financial aid. Students can take several retests, including one in July.
James Peyser, chairman of the state Board of Education, said the first year is the hardest.
``My guess is that next year there will be far less controversy and discussion about this throughout the year, in particular because the Class of 2004 is already farther ahead,'' he said.
AP-NY-06-15-03 1409EDT
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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