Published: February 17, 1999
Twelfth Grade Testing,
For What?
By Emory Curtis
With politicians scrambling to be first in education and the public's disgust with poorly educated high school graduates, it is no surprise that having high school graduates jump a standardized test bar for a high school diploma gets strong political support. At first glance, to many, that makes sense.
If it makes sense to you, think again. The main results of those tests will be to stamp a scarlet letter on the forehead of test failers and to run a failure flag up the flagpole of the schools with the most test failers.
That makes as much sense as your doctor sitting around watching you get sicker and sicker with some curable disease and then, when the disease has gone too far to be curable, the doctor begins testing and finds it is too late and there is nothing he can do about it.
That's the trick bag many high school seniors will find themselves in when they face a test normed for the twelfth grade when they are only at the low seventh or eighth grade level, if that high. That is why suddenly raising the bar only for students at the twelfth grade makes no sense to me.
Make no mistake about it. Students should meet some set of standards to be labeled a high school graduate.
Or maybe at graduation the student's diploma (or certificate) should show where that student met or exceeded the standards for different subject areas. It could show that he/she was above the standard in composition, at standard in math, below in language, etc.
In this column so far, I'm falling for the same trap I complain about. Focusing on that twelfth grade bar when the focus needs to be on setting the K-12 bars where something can be done about the failers other than stamping that scarlet letter on their forehead.
Wouldn't it be good if there was a fourth grade bar? The fourth grade is where "reading to learn" ought to be taking hold. If it isn't, it is early enough that a modicum of special focus by the student and the school can get she/he in shape to pass the fourth grade bar.
It may mean special classes, extended school days, summer school or even repeating a grade. Any and all of those catch-up remedies can be done by school districts without disrupting the activity flow within schools, school districts and homes.
Eighth grade is a good place for the next bar. That jump from middle school to high school is a big one for many students.
Those far behind at that level, will find it difficult to just stay within the pack. Once the fourth grade bar is in place, the stragglers at the eighth grade level won't be too far behind.
Maybe those stragglers will be a grade or two behind, at most. That's a catchable distance. It may take some extended work to make up that distance, but, if we expect high school diplomas to mean something, extra effort, focus and funds ought to go into making eighth graders pass eighth grade tests.
It can be done. Dr. Fleming's USC Neighborhood Academic Initiative program that focuses on the elementary schools surrounding USC and the Los Angeles Coliseum demonstrates that B and C average students can perform a lot better than what they are presently doing.
His program takes sixth graders with those grades and by the end of the seventh grade they are equaling GATE (those designated as smart in elementary school) students in academic performance. By the eighth grade, on the average, his elementary school non-GATE students are beating their GATE counterparts.
There doesn't seem to be any magic in that USC program. The main ingredients are teachers that actually believe the students can learn and impart that view to the students, students who buy into the idea that they can learn if they commit themselves to the needed work and focus.
If there is one secret ingredient of that program it is the support it gets from parents, or the parent, or the responsible adult in the home. And that comes about because Fleming and his cohorts them that their child's chances of making something of themselves is in their hands.
That sounds easy, but in today's environment, it is difficult. It is especially difficult for households where high school graduation itself is a novelty and attending a four year institution is a rarity. The USC program did it with those kind of households.
It would be a major accomplishment in California if the public school system produced high school graduates who actually jumped over a real eighth grade bar before going to high school. After all, many of today's teachers flunked one or more of the three elements in the CBEST (state certification tests for teachers) test that is about at the eighth grade level.
In one school, Cal State Dominguez Hills, almost one half of its teacher training graduates flunked that simple test on their first try. There are many teachers in our schools who only passed all three elements in CBEST after many tries.
That magic bullet of high school exit exams with its scarlet letter implications won't solve our education problem. It is going time, effort and resources to make that change. We need those early bars to keep our kids from being major recipients of that exit exam's scarlet letter.
Let me hear from you: (916) 988-4439 (V); (916) 988-5928 (FAX); email: eccurtis@hotmail.com.
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