D-Day of Sorts

 

Today, Monday, May 14, 2012. Ohio Graduation Test results are returned which means today was a day of sharing the scores with students and dealing with the highs and lows of their emotions.

The highs of today are related to the excitement of passing a test or two or three of the required five tests which must be passed in order for a student to earn his or her high school diploma.

In 2005 the Ohio Department of Education instituted the OGTs as a means to determine minimum academic competency among students. Five test are administered over a week in the content areas of Writing, Reading, Math, Science, and Social Studies. In the spring of all students’ sophomore year these tests are taken. If any or all parts are not passed with the minimum score of 400, students are provided with up to seven opportunities to take and pass the tests up through the summer of their senior year of graduation. The hope is certainly that by the time of a student’s graduation, all five tests are passed and the high school diploma is received.

Well the lows of this day are related to the sad and unfortunate students who do not pass one or two or three of the required tests. Because of the unfortunate score of less than the 400 requirement, these students are informed they will not be graduating with their fellow graduates as was anticipated. Talk about a huge let down!

Now there are those out there who claim that every student with the exception of a student with an identified learning disability or a physical impairment which would hinder a student from taking such tests should easily pass all five. Even if one or more test was not passed on the first attempt, the argument usually follows the belief of how many chances does a student need?

Well as usual these types of arguments sound good coming from lawmakers as well as others living in situations and conditions which do not even come close to those so horrific as often is the case of students who do not pass the tests. Certainly this is not to imply that all students living in poor socio-economic conditions can not and do not pass these tests. The point however is that for many due to circumstances far out of their hands the deck is stacked. Far too often, students living in conditions of poverty do not have adequate educational development because of inherent environmental barriers.

For those unfamiliar with students living in poverty, many of them are first time candidates in their families to even earn a high school diploma. For many living in such detrimental conditions, when the major emphasis is simply to find food to eat, focus on schooling takes a back seat. A student living in such conditions rarely if ever encounters the time around the dinner table in which the day’s activities are shared and intellectually stimulating conversation provokes a young mind to problem solve and be creative.

Over time this lack of emphasis on so many of the things people of privilege and opportunity may take for granted takes it toll. Poor attendance and poor academic performance can have a mounting effect resulting in the failure to pass the required OGTs. Of course such a downward spiral is only compounded by a self-fulfilling belief of being nothing short of a failure.

How sad and unfortunate that a young adult around the age of eighteen is being told they are a failure because of a standardized test. In a day and age when new things change more rapidly than flipping through the T.V. channels with a remote, and when many adults in their twenties, thirties and older are still trying to figure it out, high school students are being told they are a failure based on a biased test.

These tests at the very least can exhibit a culture and environmental bias. Not being exposed to something does not equate to not having the ability to learn. Then to add to the subjective bias often associated with the grading of the required extended responses, one must ask how truly fair and legitimate such testing is?

Certainly some form of evaluation is warranted in which students must demonstrate a minimum level of competency. However, how can one such test be applicable to such a diverse student population?

The belief that all students are “college material” is a false assumption which in many ways creates a distinct separation of peoples based on levels of academic completion. It is also equally wrong to simply assume students of higher social-economic status are “college material” and students of lower socio-economic status are not. In our world today we are in great need of men and women who are highly qualified in many areas of service, none of which required a college degree.

In the end it would seem that Ohio could be the State on the cutting edge which instead of promoting a test which is “cookie cutter”, would instead create various types of evaluative measuring instruments which would be more appropriate for all students, irregardless of socio-economic status but rather focusing on measurement tools which indicate competency in the students’ course of study.