DECATUR — School officials held a parents meeting on Feb. 4 to explain how new high stakes testing laws will effect Decatur High School students.
Arkansas is ACT 1307 was approved by the Arkansas State Board of Education in October 2009, and will require students to pass an Algebra I and English II end-of-course exam or alternative test before they can graduate from an Arkansas public high school.
Arkansas students have taken end-of-course exams for several years, but a passing score wasn’t required to earn credit for the class. Now students will have to earn a passing score of 24 out of 100 before they can earn credit ontheir transcripts for Algebra I and English II - both required to graduate.
The new law will effect eighth and ninth grade students taking the Algebra I exam starting in the 2009-2010 school year. It won’t affect students taking the English II exam until the 2013-2014 school year. This year’s sixth grade students will be the first to take the high stakes English II exam when they are in high school, according to special programs coordinator Dawn Stewart.
There are four categories of scores on end-of-course exams; below basic, basic, proficient and advanced. The score required to pass the exams is the equivalent of a low basic score, Stewart said.
Last year three Decatur students out of a class of 33, or about 8 percent, would havefailed the Algebra I test on the first try, according to high school counselor Nancy Cotter. Based on previous test scores, state officials estimate about 90 percent of high school students will pass the test.
Students who pass the test but score below proficient will have to have an academic improvement plan and participate in remediation in order to receive credit for the course. Geometry and biology students who score below proficient on their end-ofcourse exams will also be required to have an academic improvement plan and participate in remediation, but they will still receive credit for the classes even if they have a low score.
Students who don’t pass the Algebra I test on the first try will have an individualized academic improvement plan and will be given two more opportunities to pass the test. If the students still fail the end-of-course exam, they must participate in formative analysis and remediation before re-testing in an alternative format.
Formative analysis means going through every Arkansas standard to find the student’s weak areas, Stewart said.
The new law will encourage teachers to “do all we can the first time” to ensure students pass the test, Stewart said. The individualized academic improvement plans provide “additional safeguards” to make sure students pass the test on subsequent tries, she said.
“The intent of all this is to hold students accountable for their learning; but it’s also to recognize when there needs to be re-teaching and remediation, and to give students the support they need to graduate, and to be able to honestly say to them that they have graduated with the skills they need,” Arkansas Department of Education spokesperson Julie Thompson told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in November.
“I would hope that the dropout rate would not increase. The department doesn’t want that to happen. That’s why there is as much remediation built into this law as there is testing,” she said.
Testing Tips for Parents
After Stewart explained the new laws, teachers gave parents examples of test questions and gave them tips on how to help their students do better.
The open response questions students face on standardized math tests are very different from the multiple-choice tests many parents took in high school, teacher Amy Steele said. Beyond choosing the correct answer, students have to show their work and give a written response explaining why and how they came up with their answer.
“They have a lot built into these open response questions, and this is where the biggest majority of our students struggle … Yes it is a math test but the last part of the question requires them to write out an answer like it was an English test,” Steele said.
Students get as many or more points for showing they understand the concept and know how to work the problem as they do for getting the correct answer.
The tests are graded by two people to make sure a child’s response is graded fairly and not just based on one person’s opinion, she said.
Teachers stress that students can get some points for writing down something - even just a formula.
“When we see a student scored zero on a test question, our greatest fear is they left it blank. We’re always stressing, do something, write something and at least get some points,” Steele said.
Getting several extra half points could add up and make the difference between passing or failing or could even take the student up to the next level, she said.
English and journalism teacher James Garner gave parents an idea of what their children will face in the future.
In the past, Arkansas salaries were high enough that a couple could graduate from high school, get married and get jobs that paid well enough to support their family with a decent lifestyle, Garner said.
“That is not going to be true for our children. They have to compete on a national and global scale, and that means we have to make changes,” he said.
Garner said many foreign exchange students have better language and math skills than their peers in the U.S. and speak four to five languages. Some statistics show there are more honor students in India than children in the United States, and China will soon become the largest English speaking country in the world.
“Our children will be competing against more than twice as many people for the resources we have taken for granted,” he said, not just for jobs but for land, housing and food.
Parents can help prepare their children by making homework a priority and making sure their children are avid readers.
“Make reading material available in your home to the point they read for pleasure,” he said.
Parents can also prepare their children by making technology available to them and helping them to learn how to use resources like cell phones and the Internet.
He encouraged parents to teach their children life skills like balancing a checkbook and fixing a car, and talking to them about important topics like banking, insurance, government, religion and business.
“We need to think about ‘What do we want for them,’” he said.
News, Pages 1 on 02/10/2010