As today’s final school bell rings, marking the start of summer in the Maryland suburbs, the countdown begins for thousands of risingseniors who still haven’t passed state high school exams, required for the first time next year in order to graduate.
In Montgomery County, about 800 students out of a 2009 graduating class near 10,000 are projected to be at risk of not walking across the stage, said Pat O’Neill, a school board member and outspoken opponent of the high-stakes tests.
All students in Maryland high schools have been taking the tests for several years, but next year’s class is the first that needs passing scores to earn a diploma. They are taken throughout a student’s high school career in algebra, biology, English and government, and are aimed to test basic skill levels.
By the end of 2007, the passing rate in Montgomery County ranged from 88 percent in government, to 77 percent in English — generally taken at the end of a student’s sophomore year.
In Prince George’s County, scores ranged from 62 percent passage of government, to only 45 percent in algebra. Scores for the current year’s tests will be sent out in August.
“Every one of our high school principals is extremely concerned,” O’Neill said. When kids don’t graduate next spring, “we’ll have people knocking on our door — and you better believe they’ll come to the local district, not to the state board of education,” which instituted the tests, she said.
Officials at the state level scoff at Montgomery County’s opposition, saying the tests are supported by all other districts, as well as the state’s higher education and business communities.
But bolstering the opposition of Montgomery County and a handful of parent groups, a recent academic study found that students in the 23 states with similar high-stakes testing do not perform better on national tests of math and reading than their peers in states without the tests, and are not more likely to attend college or earn higher incomes.
“There are still a lot of questions that need to be answered before you deny kids diplomas,” O’Neill said.
