More than half of Prince George’s County’s high school students are in danger of not graduating in 2009, according to a recent task force report on high stakes testing.
Under the state’s current plan, beginning in 2009, students who do not pass Maryland High School Assessment tests in biology, algebra, government and English would not receive diplomas. In 2006, fewer than half of the county’s students passed the assessments, the task force said.
“Our county and our students need more time to reach the higher standards being established by the county and the state,” the report says.
The Prince George’s County Council created the committee last summer to examine the tests, “their impact on the students, and the economic health of Prince George’s County and to consider appropriate recommendations.”
According to the report, “Assessments can be used to target and assist specific student[s] to reach Maryland’s and the county’s stated learning goals rather than be used to penalize students by denying high school diplomas to some students, especially students who may be the most in need of academic and other assistance.”
Task force members agreed that a single test score should never determine whether a student graduates.
Patricia Campbell, an associate professor at the University of Maryland’s Center for Mathematics Education, was not on the committee, but she shares that sentiment.
“There are lots of others ways that students can show what they know and that teachers can make assessments of students,” she said. “And testing is part of it. The key word is part.”
Campbell said Maryland’s assessments “could be a train wreck.”
State Department of Education spokesman Bill Reinhard said Maryland will revisit the plan in 2008.
“The feeling is these are fairly minimal expectations,” he said.
If students initially fail the tests, Reinhard said, they will have multiple opportunities to take them again and will receive additional instruction.
Florida has similar testing requirements in place for math and reading. The tests became a graduation requirement in the 2002-03 school year, when 69 percent of high school seniors graduated, compared with 60.2 percent in 1998-99, according to the Florida Department of Education.
To prepare for the assessment tests, the Prince George’s committee made various recommendations, including establishing mandatory remediation programs, broadening strategies used to communicate student progress to parents, and developing a education strategy to make sure students are ready to learn and schools are prepared to instruct.
