New research is casting doubt on a graduation test Maryland high schoolers will begin taking next year.
Two studies by professors at the Universities of Minnesota, Indiana and California 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.
“They harm some kids [by denying them a diploma], but they do that without benefiting other kids,” said Eric Grodsky, a sociology professor atUC-Davis.
Grodsky explained that to bring tests to a level at which they demand academic excellence would be to make them politically unfeasible. “If you’re going to fail, say, 30 percent of students, [districts] don’t have the capacity to keep those kids” and give them another opportunity to pass.
News of the research came on the same day as the Montgomery County Board of Education spent much of Tuesday morning lambasting the tests. Board members and administrators especially railed against an alternative called the Bridge Plan for Academic Validation, a project-based assessment for students who have twice failed any of the four required exams in English, math, science and social studies.
Superintendent Jerry Weast compared the state’s handling of the tests thus far to “build[ing] a plane while flying it” with “the most vulnerable students at stake.”
Maryland education department spokesman Bill Reinhard declined to comment on the study, which has been accepted for publication in a prominent education journal, but has yet to reach its pages. “All of the states’ programs are different,” Reinhard said, adding the study did not look at Maryland’s setup. “We’ve heard from higher education and from the business community that this is the right way to go in order to expect students to understand freshman- and sophomore-level concepts.”
Reinhard also argued that each of the state’s 24 school superintendents support the exams, but that Weast has supported a delayed implementation.
Grodsky, a graduate of Montgomery County’s Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, chuckled at his home-county’s resistance. “Those are my people,” he said.
