Charleston, SOUTH CAROLINA

Standardized tests are the bane of teachers and teachers unions who recognize that the tests measure the teacher's classroom performance more than the student's. The "high stakes" they talk about isn't worry for the children. It's their jobs they fret about. And some of the lengths they go to is astonishing.

November 2, 2008 - Employees at the South Carolina Department of Education, like other states, scrutinize test results to look for signs of cheating. One telling sign is the overabundance of answers that have been erased and corrected, especially if the answers are consistently changed from wrong to right. Twenty-nine of South Carolina's roughly 1,100 schools popped up last year on the state's analysis for having higher-than-average numbers of eraser marks.

One, however, was a standout.

Sanders-Clyde Elementary in downtown Charleston, is a high-poverty school. In 2007, the number of answers corrected in some classes was more than six times the state average of less than one per test. In 2007, 96 percent of third graders taking a South Carolina test at Sanders-Clyde met the state standard in English, compared with an average of 78.3 percent at other city schools. Despite that, Sanders-Clyde students struggled when they went to other schools (New York Times, Oct. 30, 2008) It was the only school in the state red-flagged in every subject for its number of wrong answers corrected.

At Sanders-Clyde Elementary in downtown Charleston, the unusually high wrong-to-right answer switches and improbable one-year academic gains has led to scrutiny from the state and district, and now a State Law Enforcement Division investigation.

Prior History
In an analysis of erasure marks on the tests, Sanders-Clyde Elementary had more wrong answers erased and corrected than any school in the state. The state flagged the school for making improbable one-year academic gains in 2005. State officials made an unannounced visit in 2006 and found no problems.

In 2007 the school popped up on the state's analysis for its high number of eraser marks. The students' scores on the state Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test were among the best in Charleston County. That prompted supervision of the Spring 2008 tests by district monitors.

INTENSE SUPERVISION IN 2008 With intense district supervision of the school's testing process in May 2008, the results showed there were, amazingly, no unusual eraser marks. The school's test scores also fell sharply — by an average of 31 percentage points — in every subject and at every grade level

Almost immediately, teachers and the principal protested. They claimed that,

When Charleston County school officials monitored Sanders-Clyde Elementary School's testing process this year, they deprived students of snacks and breaks and created a stressful and uncomfortable atmosphere, according to teachers' firsthand accounts of the situation.

School district leaders dispute that.

Testing monitor Janet Rose, the district's executive director of assessment and accountability who oversaw the monitoring process, said she was surprised at teachers' reactions to the monitoring because it was totally unobtrusive.

Her staff deliberately sat in the back or sides of classrooms so they would not distract students, and Rose said no one was pressured to finish tests quickly.

Snacks and breaks were allowed, she said. Rose asked teachers to provide snacks in a more orderly way rather than constantly supplying students with food because that was distracting.

District staff didn't go to the school in an effort to try and find something wrong; they were there to validate the school's scores, she said.

The district stationed monitors in the classrooms and took the tests away from the school each night. When the results came in, the community was stunned.

School response
So how did the school respond? With a 16-page report that blamed the monitors.

"Many Sanders-Clyde staff members are left wondering if the distractions were intentional," the packet read. "Is it possible that individuals had personal agendas that included proving that the poor African-American child on Charleston's East Side could not have possibly produced the improvements documented over the past five years."

The State Law Enforcement Division investigation is ongoing.
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See New York Times, Oct. 30, 2008, "School’s Success Gives Way to Doubt"
The state has deemed half the schools in Charleston as unsatisfactory. The prinicpal of Sanders-Clyde Elementary resigned and left town after the closely supervised tests were given in May. She is now the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for schools in Halifax County, N.C. She denies wrongdoing.
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TT - What favors do people do for children when the adults pretend to teach them, fake their test results, patronizingly pat them on the back and graduate children who can't find jobs? Can't even fill out employment application forms and have no hope of leaving squalid poverty?

Education charlatans glorify themselves. They accept the accolades and the glowing news stories. And then they teach children by example how to blame others for lack of achievement. These imposters get away with it every day in high poverty schools using the race card - the "get-out-of-responsibility ticket." They might as well accept money for selling these children into slavery because poverty IS slavery when there is no hope.

Doubtless, we will get letters from teachers who claim that poor children don't get support from home that would enable them to learn. That's what teaching is - motivating and mentoring children. Not standing at a black board. Admittedly, it's harder to teach children whose families aren't convinced that education is worthwhile. But it is not impossible. Writing them off - poor white or black children - as unteachable is pure bigotry.

If standardized tests and the No Child Left Behind Act do nothing else, they demand accountability. For black children. For white children. And isn't it about time?

Setting Standards

These are people you can admire.

October 31, 2008 - Despite pressure from educators and the media and their wrenching stories about English language learner students who might not get their diplomas, Maryland School Board member Kate Walsh said she would will not seek delays for those learning English, she said, because she believes they should become competent in the language before they receive a diploma.

The reporter, however, looks at it differently.

How educators view the plight of students is a highly emotional issue for some, such as Dunbar Brooks, a black state school board member, and Andres Alonso, a Latino who is Baltimore's school chief executive officer. The tests, they and others argue, have raised the standards for the most vulnerable students, giving them access to a more rigorous curriculum.

They frame the argument as a civil rights issue, and say they witnessed those groups being held back by a poor education. Students who fail this June, they say, can remain in high school until they do pass.

As opposed to,

On the other side are parents and teachers who view the test requirement as blatantly unfair after witnessing the heartbreaking struggles of their own children or students.

Read the whole thing.
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TT - It isn't parents who think the tests are unfair. It is the teachers unions who vigorously oppose standardized testing. There's a reason. Standardized tests let administrators know which teachers are not teaching the curriculum effectively. Or at all. A tool that unions and underperforming teachers would like to see eliminated.

San Antonio, TEXAS

Entirely sympathetic story of a teacher who helped his students cheat.

October 29, 2008 - The news report begins, "Every year, the pressure of the TAKS test is just too much. Your kids fear they may fail and their teachers fear they may lose their jobs."

As state lawmakers consider making changes to the TAKS, News 4 Trouble Shooter Mireya Villarreal is breaking news of how the pressure of the TAKS pushed one teacher to do what he should never do: Help his students cheat.

News 4 obtained documents from the Texas Education Agency that show several local teachers under scrutiny because they didn't follow TAKS testing policy last spring. That includes one Northside School District teacher who said he gave his students answers all because the stress of the TAKS was too much to handle.

The reporterette Mireya Villarreal asked him about it.

Do you feel like what you did was wrong," Villarreal asked.

Neesvig answered, "I broke a policy. I can't deny that. Do I regret what I did? Unfortunately, I would say I would do it over again the same way."

They asked him why.

News 4 asked the teacher why he would do something that clearly broke test-taking policy. He claimed it has to do with the pressure to perform placed on students and teachers.

Neesvig said, "A lot of emphasis is placed on the TAKS test. And I think it doesn't necessarily have the best outcome for the children or the teachers."

Concluding sentence: After our interview with Burton Neesvig, we received notice he resigned from his teaching position.
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TT - The students were in his fourth grade math class. The school was Thorton Elementary School. There was little need to cheat. Students would have scored well by themselves.

In 2007-2008 this school was acknowledged by the Texas Education Agency for the following
Commended Performance in Reading/English Language Arts, Mathematics, Writing, Science, and Reading/English Language Arts. They have performed similarly well in previous years.

In 2007-2008 in Math 96% of fourth graders met or exceeded standards.
The State average was 83%.
Students score similarly well in all the grades and in all areas. They exceeded the state average in 2005, 2006, and 2007.

Why would a teacher provide answers to students who didn't need them? Teachers and teacher unions in Texas are adamantly opposed to TAKS. Like most tests, the examinations rate the performance of the teacher more than the student because they measure what is being taught. And, more importantly, not taught. Which is why the unions and their political allies have tried to undermine the tests for years.

A student turned the teacher in. Something you suspect the reporterette would never have done.

Standardized Testing

BRAGGING RIGHTS?

August 14, 2008 - The Contra Costa Times reports that the Los Angeles Unified School District standardized test scores are up.

Scores went up in every subject except 11th grade English-Language Arts, said Esther Wong, assistant superintendent for planning, assessment and research.

Despite the gains, more than two-thirds of district students continue to languish beneath the proficiency goals in English and math subjects, as measured by the 2008 Standardized Testing and Reporting, or STAR, program.

LAUSD students average 34.8 percent proficiency in math, while the state average is 43 percent. District students score nearly the same in English-Language Arts, where 34 percent are proficient, while the state average is 46 percent.

Last year, 31 percent of LAUSD students scored a proficiency rating in math, up two percentage points from the previous year. In 2007, 31 percent of LAUSD students also scored proficient in English-Language arts, up one point from 2006.

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TT - It's useful to remind parents that proficiency doesn't mean mastery of the subject. It means at grade level.

Put another way, 65.2% of LAUSD students are below grade level in math. Statewide, 57% of students are below grade level in math. No bragging rights there, especially when there is a 99.99% likelihood the student will be promoted to the next grade where the chance of failure automatically increases because of poor preparation in a prior grade.

Naturally, some media are against standardized testing. The usual rationale is that students take too many tests already, but truth is that the tests measure teacher effectiveness more than student aptitude.

SAT wants to test 8th graders because, DOH, by the 11th grade it is too late to apply remedial efforts.

Hazleton, PENNSYLVANIA

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.

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.

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."

Dismissing teachers

Who says test scores aren't meaningful? When unions fret about "high stakes testing," it isn't because the student will be judged.

June 21, 2008 - According to the Palm Beach Post, Palm Beach school principals dismissed 190 non-tenured teachers last year, four times as many as 2003. Last year, they dismissed 273 teachers by not renewing their contracts. One of the reasons?

Tracking test scores has become sophisticated, so a principal can compare the success of one teacher's students against another's in an instant, making it easier to tell which teachers are effective.

Teachers don't believe the driving factor is their students' academic success because teachers were let go before they got state test score results.

"I was told I'm not a good match," said Gail O'Donnell, one of nine teachers from Park Vista High whose contract wasn't renewed. "If my kids have good scores, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing."

TT - Not exactly. In order to let a teacher go, the school has to give notice by a date specified in their contract. This may be as early as May, and in some districts earlier. So principals have to rely on earlier test scores and past performance.

Compounding the problem is that Florida colleges are, in the words of the reporter, "churning out" far fewer teachers than schools need. An increasing number of teachers do not study education in college.

In Florida, many professionals can enter teaching by passing a general knowledge test, which gives them a teaching certificate good for three years. Many career changers do well. Some do not. Replacing staff at struggling schools has proven successful in some instances, according to the article.
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TT - Sad to say, "churning out" teachers is one of the major problems in classrooms. Colleges have done that for decades. Teaching, for them, is not a craft or a gift or a vocation. It's a civil service job and if they got to place people in a Department of Motor Vehicles job for the same amount of money, they would.

No one holds the colleges responsible for the high number of teachers who will never be certified because while the teacher gets a bachelor's degree and incurs tens of thousand of dollars in student loans, the teacher-wannabe can't pass basic reading, writing and math Praxis exams. Or competency exams in a core academic subject.

That is another reason why schools across the country are dismissing teachers early. No Child Left Behind requires teachers to be highly-qualified.

Highly qualified means 1) A bachelor's degree (at a minimum,) 2) full state credentialing - translation: many schools hire teachers new to the profession who are given a period of time to pass the PraxisI exams. (Reading, writing and math.) But NCLB doesn't allow them to stay in the classroom forever. They can only have waivers for three years. The last requirement is that 3) the teacher demonstrate competence in core academic subjects**. If you want to teach history, you have to demonstrate that knowledge in testing.

** Core academic subjects are English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography.

From the article:

Principals of low-performing schools are more likely to get rid of teachers because the stakes for not meeting academic goals are so high. Under No Child Left Behind, schools where a majority of students don't perform on grade level carries the stigma of a failing school that could be taken over by the state.

That's incentive in a nutshell.

So when they tell you that they dismissed 200 non-tenured teachers, it doesn't tell you if it was because the teacher was unable to qualify to be a fully-certified teacher, or if performance problems and demonstrable unsuitability were deciding factors.

But if schools had that NCLB incentive twenty years ago to rid themselves of bad teachers before they got tenure, teacher quality and the quality of education colleges would be a lot higher than it is now.

Linden, CALIFORNIA

If teaching isn't the answer, maybe bribery is.

April 21, 2008 - Linden High School wants to improve student achievement on standardized tests.

They're offering to increase of an entire letter grade on their report card in math and English, for students who test proficient or above. [Proficient means at grade level.]

For example, a junior earning a B in their coursework can improve to an A if they do well on the standardized tests. Also, if students test below basic or far below basic on a math test, that child's parents will receive a phone call recommending, although not requiring, that the student re-take algebra.

Students who test well and already have an A in their course work will be rewarded with a class trip.

San Diego, CALIFORNIA

Dec 23, 2007 - Doris Alvarez, a former national Principal of the Year by the National Association of Secondary School Principals, submitted a letter of resignation. Her resignation comes a week after a University of California at San Diego (UCSD) audit found that three-fourths of reviewed Preuss School transcripts had one or more grades changed — most of them (71%) to benefit students.

Alvarez denies any role in changing grades.

TT - What we found and link to audit - go here.

Standardized Testing

Compare the stories on standardized testing and the No Child Left Behind Act.

MICHIGAN
Nov 30, 2007 - Fewer Michigan high schools made adequate progress last school year due to tougher testing standards. The main way Michigan measures progress of high school students is through the ACT-based Michigan Merit Exam, adopted along with the tougher standards. The new exam replaces the old Michigan Educational Assessment Program test.

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, all students are to be proficient in reading and math by 2014. Public schools must periodically test students to gauge their success, a measure called adequate yearly progress.

States are given some flexibility on setting their own standards for what constitutes adequate yearly progress...

VERMONT - Editorial in the Burlington Free Press
Nov 30, 2007 - Some 100 people, many of them educators, showed up to a meeting with U.S. Senator Bernie Saunders, to rail against how No Child Left Behind is playing out in Vermont . schools.

No Child Left Behind works best when tests are used to figure out who needs what help. The accountability must start with making sure the students are offered the help.

The key is to keep No Child Left Behind from becoming the final word on student achievement, teacher performance or school success. Sanders knows how to choose a topic that hits home with Vermonters.

Bernie Saunders is the only self-described Socialist in the U.S. Senate.

NORTH CAROLINA - Editorial in the Winston-Salem Journal
From an editorial called, Trim the Tests,

Standardized tests don’t measure whether a child is creative or imaginative. They measure only whether the child can spit back what the school has fed him or her. And, when standardized results are so important, then school curricula become tied to the tests. Teachers are told they must teach a structured curriculum in the way that school administrators demand.

This is no way to learn and, more important, it is no way to engage the minds of youngsters and to make them want to learn.

AND,

Standardized tests don’t measure whether a child is creative or imaginative. They measure only whether the child can spit back what the school has fed him or her. And, when standardized results are so important, then school curricula become tied to the tests. Teachers are told they must teach a structured curriculum in the way that school administrators demand.

This is no way to learn and, more important, it is no way to engage the minds of youngsters and to make them want to learn.

A state commission has recommended eliminating the fourth-, seventh-, and 10th-grade writing, and the eighth-grade computer skills, tests. In addition, five end-of-course exams for high-school students may also be cut. That would leave only five.

There’s even better news. Two science exams scheduled to begin this year, which are designed to meet the federal government’s obsession with testing, won’t be counted for state purposes.

MARYLAND
Professors in the University Senate blasted a plan to bring national standardized tests to campus, saying yesterday that the proposal would undermine their lesson plans and restrict students' creativity

Last week, an association representing 430 public colleges and universities, including those in Maryland, voted to implement a standardized test that would make universities easier to compare. But professors in the senate, the university's most powerful policy making body, said they feared the test - at this point, only a pilot program - would steer the university's curriculum rather than faculty.

The test would be given to randomly selected groups of freshmen and seniors and measure students' writing, math skills and critical thinking.

Michigan test scores

Michigan test scores.

States are just now receiving the results of state and district testing. In Michigan, the Detroit News does their usual excellent job of analysis with a report on state and ACT tests.

More than half of Michigan's high school juniors failed the state's new exam in math and writing and fewer than 60 percent passed reading and science, according to results released Wednesday by the Michigan Department of Education.

The new Michigan Merit Examination, which replaces the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) in high school, is billed as a tougher gauge of how well prepared students are for college, and it showed in test scores.

AND,

Statewide, 47 percent of juniors passed the math section; 60 percent met or exceeded standards in reading; and 56 percent passed science. The worst scores were in writing, which just 40 percent passed. Students registered their best scores in social studies, where 83 percent passed.

Not unexpectly, they found "Detroit schools had some of the worst results in the area, with 14 percent passing math and 22 percent passing science. District officials declined to comment."

LINKS to interactive scores.

The new tests were implemented before the new mandatory curriculum, making the it, as State Board of Education President Kathleen N. Straus called it, "a transitional period."

TT - For decades, states and school districts have dumbed down both the curriculum and expectations for students. When students failed to pass state tests, the states dumbed those down, too, claiming language and cultural bias differences. The result was to cheat children out of the challenge of learning.

Thankfully, the Internet allows parents and taxpayers to monitor achievement in comparison to other districts so they can, if they have to, move to districts that share their view of education. It's proving to be a great incentive.

Standardized Testing

RANT OF THE DAY

June 28, 2007 - A march against standardized testing.

The Louisiana NAACP is calling on parents and interested people to come to the State Capitol Saturday morning in protest of the state's new school testing requirements.

Ernest Johnson, president of the Louisiana National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, says that the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education recently made it a requirement that students pass standardized tests in order for them to move on to the next grade, regardless of how they did with their school grades.

In the past, Johnson says there were stipulations that allowed students who failed the tests to go to summer school and continue to the next grade if they met the standard at some point during the year.Now, students who don't pass the tests during summer schools will not be allowed to continue to the next grade.

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The truth about summer school seems to be in question. From Education World:

Students who flunked the reading and math standardized tests administered in March will have another chance to pass the tests in July after attending summer school.

If they score at the "approaching basic" competency level or higher on the tests, the students will pass to the next grade if they have also met other school-district requirements. The state expects about half of those students to pass on the second attempt.

The Louisiana Department of Education website specifically states there are summer remediation programs and retests. (pg 3)

The reason for the march? It is estimated that at least 16,000 students in the state of Louisiana have failed the state's standardized tests, and have not been promoted to the next grade or graduated from high school. Most are from urban areas (For example, 63 percent of grade 8 students from the Orleans (urban) school district failed the math test, while only 10 percent from the St. Tammany (suburban) school district failed. Source: Education World) These are the very districts where social promotion has been the norm for decades.

Standardized Testing

The war on standardized testing continues in the media.

June 24, 2007 - With the No Child Left Behind Act up for reauthorization, New Jersey Express-Times worries about "Some fear law is leaving smart children behind." The story cites a Rand study released in May without supplying any links to the study.

Their point is that teachers don't like No Child Left Behind requirements.

One of the biggest criticisms of the law is that it forces teachers to, as [Spokesman for the state teacher's union Steve] Walmer put it, "teach to the test." In other words, subjects outside of the tests' scope -- social studies, art, music and physical education -- are being short-changed so teachers can drill students on the core math and literacy skills that are on the tests.

Leaving "smart children behind" is a concern, according to the article.

More than half of Pennsylvania's middle school teachers think a lack of attention to the Keystone State's smartest kids is one of the unintended consequences of the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, according to a study published in May by the California-based think tank Rand Corp. Nearly 40 percent of Pennsylvania elementary school teachers agreed.

No studies have been conducted in New Jersey, but Steve Walmer, spokesman for the state's teachers union, said it's a complaint that he hears more and more.

TT - However, an examination of the Rand study does not see "leaving smart children behind" as a major concern that isn't being addressed adequately. What they do conclude (Report page 81, PDF page 109) is that retaining high achieving students is critical to raising overall school test scores.

In other words, unions fear that high achieving students won't be there to haul up test scores to disguise the fact that children who are in most need of education aren't getting it. In New Jersey, that's most of the students. (Proficient means at grade level.)

The Rand study is called "Standards-Based Accountability Under No Child Left Behind Experiences of Teachers and Administrators in Three States." Research Brief.

The full 303-page document is available online. PDF (Very Large)
Chapter 8 Conclusions and Implications
-Report page 129 (PDF page 157)
Appendix A Survey Results
- Report page 140 (PDF page 167)

Three states were surveyed: California, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. They wanted to survey 27 districts in each state, however, refusal rates were high, particularly in California. ( PDF page 167)

Survey question on high-achieving students cited in story above. B.40 - Report page 168 (PDF page 168.)
Percentages are those who agree or strongly agree. SE is the standard error + or -

Bradenton, FLORIDA

Compare the coverage of the same story.

(June 6) Bradenton Herald: The Manatee County school board is conducting a two-part hearing to determine whether a third-grade teacher guilty of tampering with her students' standardized state tests.

In evidence, they heard videotaped testimony by a student who had difficulty with a section of the exam who came in the next day to find the answers had been filled in for her. (The same test booklets were used for both days of testing.) Three other students testified that they were given extra time to finish a reading test. They completed the test.

Cropsey refused to participate in an internal investigation. Cropsey's attorney advised her against participating in the investigation because what she said might be held against her in court. Cropsey and her attorney claim that the allegations of test tampering came on the heels of a complaint she filed against the principal claiming he did not renew her contract because of age and religious discrimination. Cropsey claims Rio's decision not to renew her contract came after she declined to participate in a prayer led by the principal at the school's flag pole.

District officials are seeking her termination because she refused to cooperate in the internal investigation. [Jan 2008 Followup: The outcome was that they found her not guilty. She was fired for insubordination for refusing to cooperate with the investigation.]

Herald Tribune columnist Tom Lyons:

A child said she left some questions unanswered, and the next day, during the next test session, she saw that her blank section had been completed.Those bubbles are indeed filled in, but no one knows if the child's recollection is accurate.

He compares the shool lawyer to a judge and the School Board to a jury.

TT - What's the greater challenge to education reform? Enforcing the rules we have or fighting a battle against the media whose very last concern is the honest education of children?

Seattle, WASHINGTON

Talk about expensive failure.

Apr 28, 2007 - Washington lawmakers are trying to figure out how to gloss over colossal failure by delaying math and science sections of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning as a graduation requirement for another five years.

The reason: "According to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 10,831 of this year's high school juniors who have taken the test did not pass the reading portion, 11,718 haven't passed writing and 32,855 haven't passed math. The class includes 82,992 students, but not all have taken all three sections of the test."

Reading failure = 10,831
Writing failure = 11,718
Math failure = 32,855

From the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction:

What will happen if our children leave high school without fundamental skills?

They will struggle to survive, both personally and professionally, because their choices will be limited. And they will have difficulty making informed decisions about everything from managing their money to electing local, state and national leaders.

Doesn't that last bit just say a lot?

According to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, twenty-six states, including Washington, have or will soon have some kind of exit exam requirement that students must meet to graduate. The students were specifically prepared for the tests: "The Class of 2008 was chosen because it is the first class to be educated with the state’s learning standards since kindergarten. "

If they were prepared since kindergarten, why are there so many failures?

Online you can find a list of unions who are opposed to standardized testing. It makes you wonder what would be the results if unions and teachers spent as much time and money on teaching as they do in opposing student achievement.

Of course, the students won't know the difference if you judge by their reading scores. They certainly won't be able to deduce that failure isn't their fault. In a state where 70.7% are white and only a scant 12.9% are Hispanic, what is the excuse? Not lack of English.

Still, legislators egged on by teachers unions and the vast education bureaucracy will deprive another generation of children out of a decent education. Just because educators are functionally illiterate and lazy, there is no reason they should deny children an opportunity to learn.

But they will do just that.