Alaska judge rules against grad test

["Monty Neill" <monty@fairtest.org>]

An Alaska superior court judge has found against the state's use of its graduation test, writing:
"It is fundamentally unfair for this state to hold students accountable for failing this exam when some students in the state have not been accorded a meaningful opportunity to learn the material on the exam." 

Below find a summary from an email FairTest received with a link to the full decision, and below that a news story. I do not yet know what relief (if any) the judge offered (news clip says state has to "address the issues" and report back to her). And I can only assume there will be appeals. More to come. 

Monty
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Here's the whole decision in case anyone wants it.

Nancy



Folks, here is link to the Moore v. State decision; its 197 pages. www.law.state.ak.us/unpublished/pdf/mooredecision.pdf.



Succinctly put:



1. Court found that the state of Alaska's funding of public education comports with the state constitution's education clause and dismissed the inadequate funding part of the lawsuit, but

2. Court found that the State had "failed to exercise adequate supervision and oversight, and failed to identify schools within the state that are not according to children a meaningful opportunity to acquire proficiency in the subject areas tested by the State and meaningful exposure to the other content areas in the State's educational standards. And as to those schools that are deficient, the state has failed to provide adequate supervision and oversight in a concerted effort to remedy that situation." and because of this, the due process rights of the children are violated when the State conditions the receipt of a high school diploma on successful passage of the High School Graduation Qualifying Exam."



I'm still reading the other 195 pages.....................




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Exit exam violates some students' rights


By KATIE PESZNECKER 
kpesznecker@adn.com

(Published: June 21, 2007) 

Alaska spends enough money on schools to meet constitutional standards, an Anchorage judge ruled Thursday. 

However, the state fails to adequately supervise local school districts to insure they do their job properly, said Superior Court Judge Sharon Gleason. Therefore, it is violating some high school students' rights by requiring that they pass a state exit exam to get a diploma, Gleason said in a split decision in the Moore v. Alaska school funding lawsuit. There are schools "that are not according to children a meaningful opportunity to acquire proficiency in the subject areas tested by the state," Gleason wrote, in her decision. 

"It is fundamentally unfair for this state to hold students accountable for failing this exam when some students in the state have not been accorded a meaningful opportunity to learn the material on the exam." 

In her ruling, Gleason gives the state a year to "address the issues" and report back to her. 

The Moore v. Alaska trial unfolded last October in Gleason's sixth-floor courtroom. The lawsuit -- the first of its kind in Alaska -- charged that the state has shortchanged Alaska schools for decades and cheats children of the education promised to them by the state constitution. 

The case is the first of its kind here. But nationwide, and for decades, dozens of similar lawsuits have argued that public schools aren't funded well enough to properly educate kids. Many of those cases have won hundreds of millions in increased budget dollars for public schools, but opinions are mixed about whether that's resulted in improvements inside the classroom. 

For more, see tomorrow's Anchorage Daily News. 

Find Katie Pesznecker online at adn.com/contact/kpesznecker or call 257-4589.