Letter to the Editor
To the Editor:
There is much written on state wide testing of pupils. The federally funded program on No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has caused considerable concern on the part of parents, teachers, and school administrators. The law mandates that pupils be tested annually in grades three through eight. If a pupil fails the test, he/she may be retained within that grade. Failing the exit test for high school graduation is also a possibility.
Not all states hold pupils back, presently, if a test is failed in grades three through eight nor do they hold a student back from receiving a high school diploma if the exit test is failed. However, in states that do, such as Texas, the price is high with feelings of failure never being accepted readily.
Why do standards vary from state to state? According to NCLB, each state was to develop its own criteria for acceptance/rejection of adequate pupil achievement in reading and mathematics, in particular.
To reveal how states vary in the level of difficulty of their own tests, North Carolina had an average of 64 percent of their students passing whereas in Delaware 17 percent of its students passed. The test items in North Carolina were much less difficult compared to those of Delaware.
When too few students pass a state mandated test, sometimes the bar is lowered so more do pass. Pupils are listed in categories such as minority groups or those with disabilities. If one category of students does not make adequate yearly progress (AYP), when comparing one school year with the next, the entire school is in the failing category. If this happens two years in a row in a school, parents may transfer their offspring to a school which is not failing, based on test scores.
Some states provide clearly stated objectives for the teacher to follow in teaching pupils. Their tests are clearly aligned with what then was taught. These students should do much better on a state mandated test when compared to students in states without this alignment.
If a state adopts a commercially prepared test for assessing students, alignment may not be possible since there are no accompanying objectives for teacher use. Then, too, some state mandated tests do not provide results to teachers which are instructionally useful. Teachers then need to guess what should be taught to assist students to do well on next year's test.
By the year 2014, all students are to reach the "proficient" level as designated by a state and measured by a single test. It will indeed be interesting to notice how many students can reach this standard when there are so many differences in abilities and talents among pupils.
Marlow Ediger
North Newton
