Thousands of new Minnesota high school graduates wouldn’t have received their diplomas this year without waivers from the state. That’s because they repeatedly failed Minnesota’s mathematics graduation test. In some districts, as many as one-third of seniors wouldn’t have graduated without a waiver.
ST. PAUL — Thousands of new Minnesota high school graduates wouldn’t have received their diplomas this year without waivers from the state.
That’s because they repeatedly failed Minnesota’s mathematics graduation test. In some districts, as many as one-third of seniors wouldn’t have graduated without a waiver.
The Minnesota Department of Education doesn’t track how many waivers are issued each year, which makes it hard to tell how many students didn’t meet the math standard.
The waivers, which the state implemented in 2009, require students who fail the first time to take the test two more times and then receive remedial help. About 57 percent of students pass on the first try, but no one knows how many of those who fail succeed when they retake it.
The state doesn’t require students who keep failing the test to meet any alternative benchmarks other than retesting and tutoring.
“You’re falsely giving someone the impression they are ready for the next step,” said Jim Bartholomew, education policy director for the Minnesota Business Partnership. “It’s almost a lie.”
Department officials said they’d like to collect more information, but have to balance data-reporting requirements with the resources available to the districts and the state.
Task force formed
Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius has convened a task force, which may lead to new policy recommendations this fall.
“When you have about half the kids not passing, you know you have to do something,” Cassellius said. “You cannot just deny diplomas. There needs to be a Plan B solution.”
About half the country’s states require graduation tests, and most keep detailed records of students who use alternative means to graduate, said Jennifer Dounay Zinth, policy analyst with the Education Commission of the States.
“Simply giving students a pass is pretty unusual,” Zinth said. “For them not knowing where the bar is set, without that data, you can’t tell if it is too high or too low.”
The number of students who get waivers varies widely from district to district. In suburban Anoka-Hennepin, the state’s largest district, 17 percent of students needed a waiver to graduate. In Minneapolis, more than 600 students — 36 percent of graduates — needed waivers.
St. Paul doesn’t track the number of waiver-dependent diplomas it issues. It does, however, compile the number of students who qualify for waivers. This year, half of the district’s seniors were eligible. It is unclear how many did not graduate because they fell short in other areas.
“We have not set up a system to cull the data and see how many students are graduating solely because the waiver exists,” said Matthew Mohs, executive director of St. Paul’s federally funded programs. “We know the numbers are large.”
District officials like Mohs and state leaders like Cassellius have suggested “end of course” assessments as an alternative to a single test. Given at the end of a variety of courses from algebra to precalculus, these tests would allow districts to measure mastery of different types of math skills.
“Students are graduating with different skills — that is a reality and is going to be a reality if this test wasn’t in place,” Mohs said. “No one is getting a diploma because they just show up. Ultimately, we believe students should be measured on the body of their work, not on a single point, a day in their life.”
Tags: k-12 education, graduation test, department of education, news, updates, mathematics, minnesota
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