FW: [Schools Matter] Rejecting the Economic Profiling of Exit Exams

["Horn, James" <jhorn@monmouth.edu>]

________________________________

From: Jim Horn [mailto:ontogenyx@mac.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 1:01 PM
To: Horn, James
Subject: [Schools Matter] Rejecting the Economic Profiling of Exit Exams


I love the smell of burning bubble-in answer sheets in the morning!

A couple of battles turning in favor of humane sanity? The New York
Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/education/10exam.html?_r=1&oref=slogi
n&pagewanted=print>  and the Boston Globe both have pieces on the
outbreak of rationality. Here is the column
<http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/mcas/articles/2006/05/10/putt
ing_tests_to_the_test?mode=PF>  from the Boston Globe by Eileen
McNamara:


	Public resistance, long overdue, had to begin somewhere. Why not
New Bedford?

	On Monday night, the New Bedford School Committee became the
first in Massachusetts to abandon the pretense that high-stakes testing
is a cure-all for the problems that continue to plague public education
in the Commonwealth.

	The city said no to a punitive state law that prohibits the
awarding of high school diplomas to otherwise accomplished students who
do not pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test. In a
unanimous vote, the School Committee said students who meet all other
requirements deserve a diploma, not the demeaning certificate of
attendance that state law now says must be conferred on anyone who fails
one or both of the English and math tests.

	In a nod to the state's authority, New Bedford school officials
agreed to continue issuing state-approved diplomas to those who pass the
MCAS. Those who do not will receive what the committee called a general
high school diploma, an acknowledgment that those students did not
merely warm a chair at school but successfully completed their course
work. Why not recognize that achievement?

	Predictably, the emperor took umbrage at being told he had no
clothes. Governor Mitt Romney threatened yesterday to withhold $103
million in state funds unless school officials in New Bedford reversed
themselves. ''To say that we should graduate kids who haven't met the
basic standards of reading and math is a gross mistake," Romney warned.
''It is a vote of no confidence in our kids."

	How will withholding the bulk of the city's $112.3 million
annual school budget advance the educational needs of those children?
How will that encourage disheartened students to stay in school?

	The vote by the New Bedford School Committee was an act of civil
disobedience encouraged by Mayor Scott Lang to reopen the debate about
using standardized test scores as a graduation requirement. It should
not be the start of a fresh political war, but an invitation to talk
seriously about the economic and racial disparities among those who pass
and those who fail the MCAS tests.

	It has been more than a decade since the Commonwealth began its
concerted effort to reform public education. Billions of dollars and a
generation of students later, MCAS has not been the great equalizer.
Urban schools in low-income neighborhoods still are disproportionately
represented among schools with failing scores. Why? And why is the
proper response to withhold high school diplomas from the very
population that needs the credential most?

	Even the state Board of Education, long a bastion of support for
MCAS, declined last month to raise the score needed to pass, because of
doubts that enough students could hit the higher mark.

	All this attention on test scores exacerbates broader problems
in public education, including the alarming dropout rates among
teachers, as well as students. A recent study by the National Education
Association reports that half of all new teachers leave the profession
within five years. The reasons they cite most often? Low pay and the
frustration of difficult working conditions, including the cumbersome
bureaucracy and the incessant drilling required to prepare students for
standardized tests.

	Romney sounded in no mood yesterday for any broader discussion
of the educational merits of the MCAS graduation requirement. To the
contrary, he made it clear that he and the Board of Education chairman,
James A. Peyser, remain committed to the prerequisite and that the board
will move to withhold state aid if the New Bedford School Committee does
not reverse its vote.

	''New Bedford is going to take corrective action," Romney said.
''They're going to have to back down on this."

	The mayor of New Bedford, for his part, is showing no sign of
retreat. That leaves the high school students in the middle, waiting to
see who calls whose bluff.

	Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
mcnamara@globe.com

<mailto:mcnamara@globe.com> Send your email letter of support to Mayor
Lang of New Bedford:
scott.lang@ci.new-bedford.ma.us
<http://schoolsmatter.blogspot.com/scott.lang@ci.new-bedford.ma.us> 

 <http://www.ci.new-bedford.ma.us/governmt/MAYOR/Images/Mayor2.jpg> 




LANG for PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!! 

--
Posted by Jim Horn to Schools Matter
<http://schoolsmatter.blogspot.com/2006/05/rejecting-economic-profiling-
of-exit.html>  at 5/10/2006 12:42:00 PM