Failure without a price.
July 31, 2008 - STORY: "Unless the Hazleton Area School District finds a way to turn around its continuing failure to meet state education standards, local educators may begin seeing consequences that go far beyond poor test scores.
The latest round of assessment tests shows that two-thirds of the district’s schools failed to meet state benchmarks for reading and mathematics."
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A LITTLE RESEARCH reveals that the school district rates a 5 overall at GreatSchools.net for their mixed academic performance. With 7 schools and 8602 students, of the six elementary schools, three of them rate 4. Two of the five middle schools are rated 4 for poor academic performance. And the single high school is rated 4. Parent and student reviews of the high school made for interesting reading.
The test scores don't seem all that bad at first glance, but when less than 50% of the students are proficient in math- meaning, at grade level in the 11th grade as tested in 2007, there's a problem. (That's actually up from 37% in 2004.) The state average for math at grade 11 was 54% in 2007 which isn't all that thrilling either.
This is not a chronic high poverty district. Only 24% of students are eligible for a free or reduced-price lunch program. The population is largely white (81%)
Pennsylvania Department of Education Academic Achievement Report for the district paints a bleaker picture. Some 31% were below basic in math in grade 11.
REFORM DELAYED In July, a proposal that would require Pennsylvania high school students to pass a battery of tests before they can graduate stalled in the legislature. Instead, Gov. Ed Rendell's administration and state lawmakers settled on a compromise that would make the tests optional for now.
The Patriot-News editorialized (July 22) on the need for statewide standardized tests after the Independent Regulatory Review Commission recommended that tests should be tailored to individual school districts rather than mandated statewide. The newspaper wrote,
The fact is, however, that we live in a global economy. Pennsylvania students need to be prepared to compete with people from other districts, states and nations where rigorous academic standards are the norm.The Patriot-News nailed the problem: "The Education Department does bear culpability for allowing some schools to pass themselves off fraudulently for decades as institutions of learning."
Schools do a disservice, indeed, an injustice, when they hand out diplomas to students who have not come close to earning them. In the process, they devalue education and the worth of a Pennsylvania high school diploma.
