Re: A CA high stakes opposition leader responds to "Texas Kids Failing Tests"

[Jo Ann Behm <jobehm@behmer.us>]

Listmates are welcome to share and hopefully inspire your own letter to ed
or op ed to Dallas Morning Star.  Below is the op ed I submitted to Dallas
yesterday.
------------------------
 
Jo Rupert Behm, M.S., RN
State and Federal Health and Education Public Policy Consultant
Council Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA) Government Affairs
Phone:  415-897-2426
FAX:    415-897-8115
email:  jobehm@behmer.us


"Convincing Grown-ups to Enact Responsible Policy and Legislation When
Deciding the Future of Children"  JRB January, '04


Texas Should Learn From California¹s Public Policy Disaster-the California
High School Exit Exam

June 5, 2007
 
Jo Rupert Behm, M.S., RN
State and Federal Public Policy Consultant
Governmental/Public Policy Chair and Former State President, Learning
Disabilities Association of CA
jobehm@behmer.us <mailto:jobehm@behmer.us>   [415] 897-2426
                   
It was visceral and heart-wrenching to read the May 23, 2007 Dallas Morning
Star article about Irving school board¹s decision to prohibit seniors from
participating in graduation ceremonies due only to their TAKS scores.

Imagine how medical, dental, nursing, law, or any other college major or
professional degree seeker would react after taking and passing every course
requirement, including research papers, projects, presentations,
field-experience, internships, mid-terms and finals over a comparatively
short 4-8 year duration---only to have one test wipe it all out.

Adult college students would surely revolt in mutiny over an absurd and
callus policy allowing one test to trump all other accomplishments and
obliterate coveted college graduation and career dreams.

But public school students have no voice---at least not that officials
bother to listen too. The future prospects of high school students dangle at
the mercy of policymaking whims, fads, and experiments.  High school seniors
have invested 13 years in mandated schooling amounting to 400-500% more time
in K-12 classrooms than typical 4-year college students.  But public school
officials feel emboldened to sabotage what should be high school seniors
most memorable graduation experience even if they meet or far exceed all
traditional requirements.

Across California adults who never met our seniors, never visited their
schools or classrooms, never read our state academic achievement standards,
never took the CAHSEE, feel justified in ambushing tens of thousands of high
school seniors on the cusp of adulthood just because of CAHSEE scores.
Could this be happening in Texas too?

Chances are grown-ups who chant the value of stratospheric academic
standards convinced [erroneously] that only a bubble test can measure, have
not multiplied, factored, or divided polynomials, graphed X-Y intercepts,
calculated slope-intercept formulas, or applied rules of exponents since
high school.

Tasks often found on exit exams never resurface after high school in the
real world of work or college but every student is nevertheless forced into
the new four R¹s of high stakes testing:  Remediate, Remember, Re-test, and
Regurgitate.

Granted high stakes tests like SATs or ACTs may be used for admission into
college although the trend is shifting away from such use.  Or high stakes
tests are deployed for professional qualifying boards.  But getting into
something or qualifying for a professional license to practice after
graduation is entirely different than trying to get out of a 13 year long
academic program with your diploma and life options in tact.

It is mind boggling how adults in power on local or state education boards
manage to reconcile the extreme disparity between limited exit exam results
[usually based on a few standards selected from just 2-3 subjects] compared
to the depth and relevance of 40-50 courses taken and passed during 16,380
hours, 2,340 days, 180 days a year, for 1.3 decades in public schools.

How can one mass scale machine-graded test count more than a student¹s
performance and variety of evidence presented to and evaluated by at least
30-40 teachers along their high school journey?

Surely all these teachers are not exaggerating or lying about 40,000 seniors
in Texas, 50,000 seniors in California [68,000+ beginning in 2008 after the
lawsuit settlement exempting special ed students expires], 5,000 seniors in
Arizona, and 15,000 seniors in Florida year after year---over 100,000
graduation hopefuls from just four states that teachers indicate were ready
to graduate according to grades, courses, and credits earned.

Seniors denied diplomas and handed or mailed home token Certificates of
Completion [Attendance or Attainment] will find these documents are
worthless for college, financial aid, or most living-wage job training
programs or apprenticeships.

Until the onslaught of high stakes tests ceremonial-only Certificates were
reserved to hand out on stage to the most severely impaired students with
mental retardation or traumatic brain injury.  Federal laws allows these
students [usually no more than 10% of students with disabilities] to stay in
public schools until age 22 to learn independent life skills.

Industry lumps non-graduates and presumes all are unqualified to sell shoes
at Sears, collect boarding passes for airlines, delivery Pepsi cases to
retailers, drive for UPS, or apply for most of the other 145 million U.S.
jobs that require a standard high school diploma to even apply---let alone
be considered for advancement.
Only 25-30% of U.S. jobs prefer a college diploma but approximately 75%
require a high school diploma or the equivalent.

Like in California and many other states Texas seniors are probably required
to complete semester or year-long courses in history, geography, civics,
economics, government, algebra, foreign language, computer technology,
sciences, and performing or visual arts. They too probably earn 220-270
graduation credits [or units] and complete required senior research
projects, presentations, portfolios and community service.

In spite of it all, seniors denied on-time diplomas will never be considered
legitimate members of their graduating class.  Caps, tassel keepsakes,
photos, invitations, celebrations will be withheld and memories trashed.

Future class reunions will be agony for rejects if they are even invited.

What else does being denied a diploma mean for sacrificial seniors?
Consider statistics gathered by Henry Levin, professor of economics and
education at Teachers College, Columbia University:

* Adults without a high school diploma are twice as likely to be unemployed
* Adults without a high school diploma will earn $260,000 less over their
lifetime than high school graduates
* Adults without high school diplomas make up nearly 70% of inmate crowding
in state prisons 
* Half of adults without a high school diploma resort to welfare
* Adults without a high school diploma have less access to health insurance
and their life expectancy is 9.2 years shorter than high school graduates

Experts warn test scores alone have limited value.  But states rarely bother
to invest in reputable, longitudinal research to confirm [or refute] that
passing v. non-passing scores offer any measurably significant differences
in college or job performance over time.  Without years of scientific
verification any claim that test scores equate to essential academic skills
[or lack of for TAKS or CAHSEE failures] is pure, unadulterated rhetoric.

To date, evidence of harm in California far outweighs any evidence of
meaningful information about skill variations unearthed by the CAHSEE.
Texans will hopefully take note and answer these important test questions?

How can one snapshot test legally and ethically overshadow and nullify all
that seniors accomplished over 13 years during their K-12 journey?

Will shafted seniors, their parents, advocates, and attorneys be able to
review the complete and precise TAKS test booklet and accompanying answer
documents responsible for ending graduation and voiding scholarships,
college admissions, military or service academy appointments, or job offers?
 
If scoring mistakes or other test errors or glaring universal design flaws
surface who will compensate students and families for harm, pain, and
suffering?

Will seniors, parents, advocates, or attorneys be able to conveniently track
experience levels and credentials of all teachers who taught the relevant
TAKS standards-aligned course during middle and high school upon which the
high-stakes TAKS is based?

What is anticipated taxpayer costs to fund ongoing adult education, social
services, healthcare, and unemployment for your new, growing subclass of
should-have-been high school graduates?

Here¹s hoping Texans will carefully re-weigh the cost-benefits of the using
TAKS scores for potentially life-threatening, irreparable high stakes
decisions against individual students.

Texas has set new national models in motion before and you can do it again.

Please keep the best interest of high school students up front and center.

High school graduation should be the launching pad for most---not a lunar
landing just for the privileged.   Jo Behm, M.S., RN  <jobehm@behmer.us>