Monday, July 31, 2000
Reading test getting another look
4th-grade, make-or-break exam stresses kids, parents, teachers
By Debra Jasper
Enquirer Columbus Bureau
Lynne Albrecht of Fairfield goes over lessons with daughter Tess, who is entering third grade.
(Michael Snyder photo)
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COLUMBUS — Parents are upset, students get physically ill and some fourth-grade teachers are so stressed they are considering teaching at a different grade level. That is how many educators and parents have responded to an Ohio law requiring students to either pass the reading section of the fourth-grade proficiency test next year or flunk fourth grade.
The issue has wide-reaching educational, financial and even psychological implications. For Cincinnati Public Schools, for example, it could mean the majority of fourth-graders aren't promoted to the next grade level, a school official said.
“You can't comprehend the stress. You go from school to school to school and get an earful,” said Bonnie Fitzharris, a curriculum supervisor at Fairfield City Schools. “Next year when kids actually start to be held back it's going to be horrible.”
The Fairfield School District, like many others, is not opposed to proficiency testing but has found the current fourth-grade tests lack flexibility, can be unfair, and can put parents and teachers in a state of panic, Ms. Fitzharris said.
“I've had calls all summer from parents who say they are just sick about this,” she said.
So many complaints have flowed to legislators that several Republican leaders who once vocally supported the tests now appear willing to change course.
Gov. Bob Taft, for example, acknowledged last weekthat the tests might be a “burden” on young children
after he heard from a number of frustrated parents during a visit to Duncan Falls Elementary School in Muskingum County. Mr. Taft said he would consider shortening the tests, which now take five days.
But the governor first wants to hear from a group he appointed in April to analyze testing standards in Ohio schools.
That group, the Commission on Student Success, isn't expected to issue its findings before the end of the year. One of its members, Sen. Robert Gardner, R-Madison, thinks the group will favor shortening the fourth-grade tests by eliminating science and citizenship sections, which are among the measures included in a bill he plans to sponsor. Students would be tested only on reading, writing and math skills under this bill.
Revisions weighed
Mr. Gardner, who is chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said his proposed bill also would revoke the mandate requiring students who fail the reading section to repeat fourth grade.
Instead, the results of the reading test would be used to categorize students as either gifted, regular or remedial. Teachers would have to provide special help to remedial students and hold back only students with extremely low scores.
Eliminating the science and citizenship portions of the test would keep the emphasis on reading, Mr. Gardner said.
“If a child can't read, he can't do science,” he said. “Reading is the critical part. You might as well hold him back if he can't learn to read.”
Jan Leslie, director of public affairs for the Cincinnati Public Schools, said Cincinnati educators think students must demonstrate proficiency in reading even earlier than fourth grade. In fact, students in Cincinnati Public Schools who do not pass a third-grade reading test must attend mandatory summer school to be promoted.
She said 83 percent of the students who failed the reading test this year attended summer school — more than doubling summer school attendance to 5,200 from 2,200.
While noting there is room for improvement, Ms. Leslie called the fourth-grade proficiency tests a “positive accountability measure.” And she disagreed with Mr. Gardner's proposal to eliminate the citizenship and science sections from the tests.
“We test what we value, so if we value citizenship and science I think we should test it,” she said.
Still, Ms. Leslie acknowledges that if the current law stays in place requiring fourth-graders to pass the reading section next year, then the district would have problems.
“A majority of our students would not be promoted to the fifth grade if that was how it is now,” she said.
That failure rate doesn't surprise Lynne Albrecht, the mother of five children, including a third-grader in the Fairfield City Schools.
In lighter moments, she said parents and teachers joke that if the current law stays in effect elementary school parking lots will have to be expanded to accommodate all the fourth-graders driving to school.
But such light moments are rare. Ms. Albrecht said the law has caused a lot of pain in districts across Ohio.
“All these ideas seem great when a bunch of adults are sitting around the table, but they turn out so different when translated to the fourth grade,” she said. “I've seen students crying over this, so upset they've wet their pants. It's ridiculous how much pressure these tests have put on kids.”
Ms. Albrecht was particularly critical of the reading section of the tests, which she said measures a student's ability to think figuratively as well as to comprehend.
Not all 9-year-olds, even if they read well, are equipped to discuss the figurative vs. the literal interpretation of a story, she said.
“A huge decision in their lives — whether they will get passed to the fifth grade — shouldn't hinge on their ability to read the meaning behind a poem on one section of one test in any given week,” Ms. Albrecht said.
But while she doesn't like the current law, she is unimpressed with the proposed changes to it. Ms. Albrecht said categorizing children based on how well they do on the reading section will label some children as smart and others as stupid.
“It's really, really bad to label kids at the elementary level, and the word stupid might not be used but believe me, the kids would perceive it that way,” she said.
Debate just starting
While Mr. Gardner said he feels confident his proposals will be widely supported, such differing opinions illustrate that the debate over testing is likely just beginning. And resolution may be a long time in coming.
Robert Wehling, senior vice president for Procter & Gamble and a member of Gov. Taft's Commission for Student Success, said the group has not reached any conclusions about how to solve proficiency test problems.
The only theme that has emerged from the group is that state leaders need to decide what information a student should know by a certain grade so a school's curriculum can line up with that standard, Mr. Wehling said.
Then testing can assess if the right standards have been met.
“The whole thing needs to be aligned and everybody agrees it is not right now,” he said.
With such concerns in mind, several Democratic legislators have called for a moratorium on the proficiency tests until the problems can be ironed out.
“Until we can design tests to measure what we know is fair, we shouldn't have anything in place,” said State Sen. Mark Mallory, D-Cincinnati. “We can't play with the lives of our children.”
Meanwhile, anxiety over the tests continues to grow.
Barbara Sprague, executive director of the Ohio PTA, said her organization doesn't have a position on the tests but it hears about them frequently. “We get a lot of complaints,” she said. “The issue has come up at every meeting and workshop we've had.”
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