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USA Today , August 14, 2003
Eliminate Tests' Double Standards
By John Merrow
Testing has
come to all three levels of education. Many states require
high school seniors to pass a test to graduate. Most new
teachers have to pass tests to qualify for their jobs. And
now Massachusetts and a handful of other states expect principals
and superintendents to pass an exam as well.
In short, conditions are ripe for an educational ''perfect
storm'': widespread failure at all levels. In fact, this
just happened in a small Northeastern city. The aftershocks
illustrate the lengths politicians and educators will go
to rationalize away the problems that mire the testing movement
and victimize the students these tests are intended to help.
Here's a multiple-choice question: What happens when the
school superintendent, 20 certified teachers and 41% of
high school seniors fail tests they're required to pass?
(In the superintendent's case, it's the third time he has
failed the basic literacy test.)
A. No one is punished. All receive extra support before
the retest.
B. Everyone suffers. The seniors don't graduate on time,
and the adults are suspended without pay until they pass
their tests.
C. The students don't graduate, but the educators keep their
jobs.
D. The students and teachers are punished, but the superintendent
is praised by his state's governor and receives a 3% raise.
Those who selected ''C'' have a grasp of the system; they
know there's often a double standard for kids and adults.
But ''D'' is the correct answer, because Lawrence, Mass.,
where this situation is unfolding, operates on a different
double standard: Punish students and teachers, but reward
leaders.
At an Aug. 4 news conference, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney
praised Lawrence School Superintendent Wilfredo T. Laboy,
adding, ''I'm not sure the superintendent of schools is
in the same level of importance to me in terms of English
skills as are the teachers in the classroom teaching our
kids.''
But the 1998 state law doesn't distinguish between teachers
and educational administrators. According to the state education
department's Web site, the purpose of testing is ''to demonstrate
. . . skills necessary for an educator in Massachusetts
public schools and for communication between school, parents/guardians,
and others in the school community.''
The double standard applies to retest opportunities as well.
It's solely up to the students to apply to retake the graduation
test; all responsibility for failure rests on their shoulders.
Teachers who received failing scores but no feedback about
specific areas of weakness will be offered language lessons
next year, when they'll have another chance to get back
in the classroom. If they fail again, they're out of a job.
Even if they pass, they won't get their jobs back unless
there's a vacancy. (Massachusetts does grant waivers to
uncertified teachers who fail the test, allowing them to
keep teaching.)
Superintendent Laboy, however, has until the end of December
to pass the test he has failed three times. Unlike the teachers,
he has been given a detailed analysis of where he went wrong,
and he will get tutoring from some of his employees. And
if he fails a fourth time, he'll probably get a state waiver
-- despite the fact that the state statute makes it clear
that anyone failing once can't stay on the job without a
waiver.
As for Laboy, he's not talking to reporters anymore, but
he did tell The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, which reported the
story first, that the test has little relevance.
''It bothers me because I'm trying to understand the congruence
of what I do here every day and this stupid test,'' Laboy
said. ''I didn't meet the bar. But I think truly and honestly
it has no relevancy to what I do every day. The fruits of
my labor speak greater than not passing a test.''
If Laboy also has any doubts about suspending employees
without pay for failing to meet state requirements while
he continues on salary, or about the relevance of the graduation
test to the real world students live in, the newspaper did
not report them.
Other leaders also pledged their support of Laboy. ''I judge
him based on how well our kids are doing in the schools,''
Lawrence Mayor and School Committee Chairman Michael J.
Sullivan told the Boston Herald. ''I will stay the course
with him because he's doing an incredible job for the kids.''
Incredible, indeed: Massachusetts' education department
reports that 254 of 430 Lawrence seniors passed the state
exam this year. That's a graduation rate of 59% -- or a
failure rate of 41%. Dig deeper, and it gets worse: In ninth
grade, the Lawrence class of 2003 had 917 students, meaning
more than half fizzled out along the way to graduation.
Any way the data's sliced, Lawrence has the state's lowest
pass rate.
The
system should extend the same support to struggling students
that it does to struggling principals, including pointing
out areas of weakness and offering additional help. That
way, students would feel as welcome to stay in school as
Laboy does.
Obviously, the need extends beyond Lawrence. The introduction
of high-stakes tests coincides with reports of high dropout
rates. For example, recent reports indicate that thousands
of ninth graders have disappeared from school rolls in Houston,
Oakland, central Florida, Richmond, Va., and New York City.
Some students drop out rather than fail the tests, and others
are ''encouraged'' to drop out by educators in the belief
that ''pushing out'' these students will protect the school's
pass rate and their own reputations. Whether these youngsters
are called ''dropouts'' or ''push outs,'' school districts
shouldn't be allowed to get away with hiding their failures.
Doing so subverts the original logic behind all testing
-- for students and superintendents.
When three-quarters of a ninth-grade class doesn't graduate
from high school, something is wrong with the system --
not the kids.
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