Just a minute…high school just ain’t that damn hard.
Unless they’ve dropped college classes into the high schools these days, a learning-disabled gibbon could probably pass if he did a little extra credit work.
I’ve seen the classes and read some of the books that are provided to mainstream high schoolers. They’re doing the stuff I did in junior high–probably as a result of the demands for more ‘socially conscious material’-- instead of those darn ol’ 3 R’s. They’ve lessened the intellectual demand to the point that, if they made it any easier, you’d pass any test if you spelled your name correctly on the first try.
Jesus! If someone in 10th grade can’t pass a standardized test–complete with time limits, no talking, and frowning proctors–then they fail. What a concept!
These kids have got to understand that it’s their education, and that makes it their responsibility to learn the material.
Further, the premise that it’s the teachers that are failing doesn’t wash since the majority of the kids do pass. They’re putting the information out there; it’s up to the kids to absorb it.
Social promotion is the root evil behind this. There’s no excuse for letting a kid move on when s/he isn’t prepared. You can blame teachers and school boards for that, but not for failing to present the material.
You learn, you pass. Simple enough.
As far as test anxiety, dyslexia, or poor language skills go…well, those are burdens the student must overcome while still managing to pass the tests. Real life doesn’t give do-overs or make allowance for you simply because you stress out when a demand is put upon you. (Of course the student should have help in developing coping techniques should s/he have any of the aforementioned, but that help shouldn’t include being given a pass when they didn’t deserve it.)
Does this sound cold-hearted? It shouldn’t. I’m a result of ‘adaptive teaching’, and my son has some issues he has to deal with. From my experience, I know that it’s worse to allow someone to skate rather than demanding that they perform–regardless of (dis)ability. That’s why I make sure that my son proceeds with his class and doesn’t use any kind of lessened ability as a crutch. I believe he’ll be the better for it–not diminished because something was ‘hard’ for him so he glossed over it–and was allowed to.
Hmm, don’t know which high school you’re talking about nor which ‘learning disabled gibbons’ you’ve tested Rysdad but I disagree strongly on both counts.
my son (hopefully graduating this spring) took stuff in HS math and science that was college level.
and there’s plenty of folks leading productive lives working in factories, stores, restaurants etc. who don’t read Shakespere, etc.
This post makes sense in the real world, but there’s something backwards. Try this syllogism
A busser doesn’t need reading skills.
A HS diploma normally indicates reading skills.
We should give the illiterate student an HS diploma, so she can qualify for a job as a busser.
Q. What’s wrong with this?
A. The restaurant shouldn’t require a HS diploma for a busser’s job.
However, if the restaurant makes the mistake of requiring the diploma, should the school then change its standards to match the restaurant’s inappropriate choice?
As electives, I’m sure. Or at the very least in advanced classes which are substantially different than the general ed classes.
You’ll note that I was talking about “mainstream” classes. Certainly some students may take AP classes, and more power to them. I was talking about the watered-down dreck that passes for an education that I’ve seen sent home with high school kids.
Perhaps, but this thread is not about high school classes, it is about graduation exams. These are not normal final exams that go along with a class, but are special tests that a student must take in order to qualify for graduation.
There are a certain amount of jobs available. The number of high school graduates is really irrelevant to that number. Handing out fewer diplomas is not going to magically make a bunch of jobs go poof and disappear. If there weren’t as many people with diplomas, then employers would be forced to lower their standards. Have you ever considered that the reason that many employers require high school diplomas despite them not being necessary for the job is because high school diplomas are so easy to get? In the current state of affairs, someone managing not to get a diploma, or at the very least a GED, is indicative of serious problems that may impair their ability to perform the required duties. If a diploma became somthing people actually had to work for, then it would follow that the average intelligence of people without diplomas would increase, and therefore employers would be more willing to hire them.
Yes, these particular people would be better off with a diploma. But other people that manage to not get a diploma even with such lax standards would be better off if standards were higher. People that actually deserve the diploma would be better off with higher standards. Employers would be better off with higher standards. Why should the concerns of people getting something that they don’t deserve outweigh those of everyone else?
Cheesesteak
I’m not sure why it doesn’t sound stupid spoken (more lax standards), but the reason it looks stupid written is that “'nother” is short for “another” which is in turn a concation of “an other”. So the phrase “a whole 'nother debate” means “a whole an other debate” which is looks stupid for good reason.
Again, wring, I must be able to parallel park to get a drivers license. In no way is parallel parking the most important part of a drivers examination. These students have all sorts of requirements; none is more important than another, they simply all must be met.
It doesn’t matter if they are going to use their Shakespear skills as a waitress or busboy; that is what is required to get a high school diploma. As you, or perhaps someone else, noted: to perform many jobs you only need to pass grade school, or perhaps middle school (for those districts that make the distinction). So should we hand out diplomas to everyone that passes this level, and then make high school optional? Maybe we should hand out diplomas after every grade over six to ensure we don’t accidently “overeducate” someone. :rolleyes:
Sorry, they didn’t make the cut. Other students need to know they need to learn their shit, pass this test, and never look back if they want. Ohio had the same problem when they started their brand of test, and everyone bitched and moaned, and lo no one notices a thing now, people just go on and pass the test and know that they need to have a wide, though superficial, grasp of things in order to get their diploma. And like all students in all levels everywhere they can promptly forget everything they want to after that.
Well, hey, I suppose only having a day is a timed test.
Of other importance to note is that they only have to pass it in tenth grade. If they don’t pass it in tenth they can take it in eleventh. If they don’t pass it in eleventh they can take it in twelfth. I also believe there are retests available each year, for a total of six chances. (on further looking at the MCAS site I see they offer fall and spring tests, with the spring being the retest)
Also of interest:
Well, at least they are being unfair about it.
The test questions that aren’t multiple choice have a total of four points available to them. Overall I believe a student must score just over 50% in order to pass these tests, though I am still looking for more comprehensive scoring discussions.
Also, I should mention that there is still controversy in Ohio about their standardized tests, too. I made it seem like no one even cares anymore which is just plain false. There is also a correlation between socioeconomic status and passing rates which is why, in my very first post to this thread, I mentioned concern about the socioeconomic status of the students who failed.
[on preview] wring, when I took my test I had to pass three specific sections. One was a written test. One was the driving test that was on-road. The third was parallel parking (actually they called it “maneuvering” but whatever: it was parallel parking around cones). Fail any of it and I fail.
eris my state dl exam (my son took it recently), had a written part, and a driving part. he actually lost points on the parallel parking (apparently you’re supposed to do it perfectly the first time you pull in vs. pull back out a bit and straighten it out), but could still pass.
the rest of the stuff you posted is very, very different from what was in the OP (ie untimed, 3 tries etc.), however, the level of question that Kimstu posted as being examples of actual test questions are not, IMHO, 10 th grade work as your statements here claim.
My question is, simply, what’s wrong with the idea that a diploma must be earned? If most of the kids can earn it, why should it be given to those who can’t?
Whether the school requires algebra-trig or reciting Chaucer (puke), if all of the kids are held to the same standard, then what’s the problem with giving them a test to see if they bothered to learn?
Christ-on-a-Segway, these kids aren’t being asked for a doctoral thesis! They’re simply being made to prove that they have a decent grasp of the subject matter they were suposedly taught. If there’s a question on the test about divergence of electromagnetic radiation, then sometime during the year, they must’ve been taught the inverse square rule. If they’re asked to compare and contrast Twain with Hemingway, then they must’ve been required to read the books. I’m sure they’re not going to be tested on material that wasn’t presented.
FTR, in my state, parallel parking makes up only a portion of the road test. You can get points off if you don’t park efficiently, and you can fail the whole test if you bump the traffic cones, but you can still pass the test without parking perfectly on the first try.
The test actually begins on page 64. There’s a lot of junk in the beginning about the structure of the test and such. I’ve just spent the past who knows how much time looking over the thing. I’m sorry to say that it simply isn’t all that difficult. I can see that not all students could answer all the questions, but I should think that most could answer enough of the questions in order to pass high school, especially seniors.
The number of students and the strong correlation to historically poor groups is disconcerting to me. Looking over the test I don’t see much that isn’t handled in every English and math class across all of America.
What concerns me here is whether the school system is really failing these groups or if their status somehow prevents them from properly functioning in high school, as the test I read doesn’t seem that awful biased. I mean, education standards are very similar across the nation; we are all taught reading comprehension, we are all taught pre-algebra and some applied algebra concepts, we are all taught inferring meaning of unknown words from the context, we are all taught how to write short essays… any cultural bias of the tests is really a reflection of a culturally biased education, but then shouldn’t students be biased from that education?
Well, I don’t know. There have been statistical analysis of test results from the SAT to these high school tests and across the board we see trends with respect to self-defined races, or economic status, and so on. Some of the stuff I was looking over today about the state of Ohio’s test indicate that the fitness of the teachers had little impact on test scores; it was dominated almost entirely (and the correlation was obvious by inspection) by socio-economic status.
So, the question in my mind is this: in what manner can a public education system fail people based on socio-economic status if we can show (in at least Ohio, and probably most states unless there is something special about Ohio that I don’t know) that the test results don’t seem to have any dependence on the teachers themselves?
Important questions, IMO. But these questions don’t change the fact that this is what the state has determined is necessary to graduate, and what more is there to say than that? It is a real problem, but I don’t think the solution lies in graduating kids that obviously don’t know the material (unless a test can somehow only select for white/asian kids in all of Boston public schools, something I think should be pretty much impossible to deliberately engineer).
Now, there are some other interesting things to note here that might be missing because of the philosophical oppostion to mandated tests like these. Let’s take a look at how some of the larger school districts fare (the results are from juniors taking the tests):
Now, only having lived in Taxachusetts for two years I cannot say much about these different communities, but from the limited experience I have none but Boston are significantly city-like. Worcester is a pretty busy town, but the rest are (IMO) decidedly suburban.
It is significant to note that the more populated areas are indeed performing lower, even if all are rising. I don’t know what the minority population of Worcester is offhand, but I am mostly concerned with people trying to throw a race card when the issue is more likely to be an economic one, especially in a city as expensive as Boston is. Hell, even living in the crime areas is expensive. About the only reasonably priced area I know of is Lynn (Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin) and it has a crime rate (last I checked) worse than Cambridge even with a population density severely lower. Apart from that, hell, I live about one bock from low-income housing (I call the the Cambridge Projects but that has a connotation that there is something sub-par about them when there sure as hell isn’t: very nice area, actually) and I don’t notice a thing wrong with my neighborhood (apart from the damn rent I pay!).
So, again, my concern here isn’t about biased tests or poor teaching, but that for some reason the lifestyle these kids are leading is interfering with tolerable learning practices.
Another quote from the MCAS site (the whole thing is filled with interesting tidbits):
What can we say to that? How is the system failing these students? Or are the students failing themselves? Or are the parents not able to provide a good environment for these students?
There are many good questions here, but none of them seem to reflect the idea that
[list=1][li]This test represents what a student should (in a somewhat ideal case) be able to answer by tenth grade, but allows them to try until twelfth[/li][li]The test covers, by inspection, things which are covered in the required courses[/li][li]A failed test does not indicate a student cannot graduate, but merely that they must demonstrate that even though the test scores don’t reflect it they have demonstrated an ability to perform well[/li][li]That, failing even the non-test-passing option, these students simply do not know the material necessary to qualify as someone that graduated high school.[/list=1][/li]
These tests have demonstrated that we are passing kids we shouldn’t be. The solution to this is not: “Hey, let’s pass them.” That’s how we got here in the first place! I would think that this is pretty obvious; in fact, I would think that this is the root of the whole idea behind the concept of “passing a grade.” And note that all the extra help the education system is trying to provide students, and half of them don’t even want to bother. If they don’t want to do the work to get the diploma, should we also just give it to them?
It is sad that so many may face not graduating. But they don’t know the material, and they don’t deserve a diploma. High school is more than just attendence.
erl:But we want to offer everyone an education that can allow them to become a busboy, or to move somewhere else on the class ladder.
“Offering” such an education is one thing; requiring that everyone successfully complete such an education before they’re considered qualified to work as a busboy is another. No, I’m not arguing in favor of lowering standards, unless you think that the present standards of purely academic education are the only educational standards we ought to have. What troubles me is that we are diminishing the options for the many students who have no interest in academic education, but who would nonetheless be capable of very productive and fulfilling careers if we didn’t make an academic qualification our yardstick for practically any entry-level job.
Fifty years ago, most of the 25% to 50% of men who didn’t get a high-school diploma (I’m not considering the female students because so many women at that time became full-time homemakers and never entered the job market, or not till much later) weren’t condemned to poverty and struggle as a result; they got manufacturing or trades jobs, or farmed, or became anything from a piano tuner to a glassblower to a river guide to a tennis coach to an actor to a taxidermist. Sure, it can be very advantageous even in such a non-academic career to have a more-than-minimal academic education of the sort that the MCAS requires, but does that mean it should be absolutely necessary?
I realize this is not so much about whether MA schools should keep the MCAS as about the broader question of what universal education should consist of. I have no problem with wanting a high-school diploma to reflect a high level of academic achievement; hell, my chairman thinks they still ought to be required to learn Latin in order to graduate. I just worry that the combination of insisting on high standards for an academic degree, plus eliminating the career options for those who don’t have such a degree, is screwing the people who don’t have the inclination, ability, or educational resources to do academic work at a high level. (And I agree with you that race or ethnicity has little or nothing to do with who those people are.) That’s not “providing economic mobility”; that’s simply enforcing a more rigid class distinction between those who are successful at academic work and those who are not.
Eventually perhaps. But that kind of screws the first batch of kids who can’t graduate because they can’t pass the test, doesn’t it? Maybe at some point in the future employers will become willing to hire people without diplomas, but who knows when that might be. When these kids don’t get their diplomas, are their potential employers going to see them any differently than they would kids who couldn’t get their diplomas a couple of years ago – that is, kids that were held to a lower standard but still failed? This problem becomes even worse for people seeking employment in other areas, where graduation exams are not in use. They may be better educated than many students who did graduate in that area, but will be forced to compete on the same level as those who did not.
Why don’t these kids deserve their diplomas? If the test is the only thing standing between them in a diploma then they would qualify for graduation in the many districts that do not require a graduation exam. They would have qualified for graduation in their own district before the exam was introduced. Do they suddenly become underserving the moment the school decides to introduce an arbitray new hurdle?
If people want to improve schools they should – gosh! – improve schools. Adding an extra test does not improve the schools. It doesn’t even provide the district with much of an incentive to improve the schools if the majority of the kids failing are poor minorities. If the school were really committed to serving the needs of minority students, would more than half of them be unable to pass the exam? I’m sure that if it were rich white kids failing the exam then something would be done, but the parents of poor minority kids do not have much pull. Everyone would be better off if the schools were better, but everyone is most decidedly not better off with these graduation exams.
This amounts to a minor hijack, but one thing I’ve proposed in the past was that high schools should have the ability to grant two types of diplomas: academic and technical.
There were people in my high school that excelled in the “shop” classes (carpentry, automotive, metalworking, etc.) that struggled with typical English/Math/Science courses. I did well in those, but I couldn’t’ve found a PCV valve with a blueprint. Meanwhile, they were rebuilding engines and building armoires.
Of course not all high schools have the same shop classes, but that would be another argument for open enrollment. Let the kids, with the agreement and assistance of their parents, select the high school that best meets the child’s abilities. Let those schools tailor their graduation standards to coincide with the curriculum. That way you’d end up with better educated technicians from the “shop” schools as well as freeing up space in the “academic” schools.
This would, of course, require that if there was MCAS-type testing in place, the test would have to be designed to measure different skills in the different schools.
But Cheesesteak, most of the jobs that require a high school diploma do not actually require a high school education – in many cases, a 5th grade education would be plenty. The employer demands the diploma for other reasons – to keep the number of applicants down to a managable size, perhaps, or out of the belief that insisting on a diploma will produce applicants that are in some undefined (and probably irrelevant) way “superior” to dropouts.
I really like both of these ideas: the idea of proficiency certifications in limited skill sets and the idea of the school as a place that simply helps people acquire the basics, then learn whatever they choose.
Unfortunately, I don’t see any chance that we’ll ever do either thing.
I just worry that the combination of insisting on high standards for an academic degree, plus eliminating the career options for those who don’t have such a degree, is screwing the people who don’t have the inclination, ability, or educational resources to do academic work at a high level. (And I agree with you that race or ethnicity has little or nothing to do with who those people are.) That’s not “providing economic mobility”; that’s simply enforcing a more rigid class distinction between those who are successful at academic work and those who are not.