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Passing Grades: In May, the Department of Children, Families and Learning (CFL) reported that 85 percent of Minnesota 10th graders had passed the state's basic-skills test in writing, which is a part of the state's graduation rule. In some school districts, everyone passed. On the surface, this suggests a remarkable turnaround insofar as only two years earlier, a full one-third of all (mainly) eighth graders had flunked at least one of the two basic skills tests offered that year, in reading and math. The comparable proportion of children failing in Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools had been about two-thirds. Yet given that it's nearly impossible to write competently without first being able to read that way, and given that the reading test used by the state is more prepubescent than basic, let's just say my first reaction on hearing about the writing results last spring was that something was amiss. I mentioned my skepticism a day or two later to a superintendent friend who pointed out, fairly enough, that my lament about too many children passing the writing test had been preceded by complaints on my part about too many children failing the reading and math exams. I couldn't have it both ways, she argued. If I were to be legitimately upset, it would have to be either because too many boys and girls were doing artificially well on tests, or because too many were bombing them. I couldn't decry both outcomes. I'm afraid I can. It remains a terrible state of affairs that thousands of Minnesota high school students risk not graduating in 2000 because they still haven't passed reading and math tests that only can be described as ridiculously easy. (A sample math question in which students are allowed to use a calculator: "In a football game, a team gained 4 yards, then another 12 yards, was penalized and lost 15 yards, and gained 7 yards. What was the net gain for the three successive plays?") But it's also terrible, and more than a little offensive, that requirements for passing the writing test appear to be even lower. How low? The following three samples have been deemed worthy of passing by CFL officials. On a scale of 1 to 4, in which 3 and 4 are passing grades, each was rated a 3, thereby warranting a high school diploma. How do I know this? These are some of the actual answers that the CFLwithout embarrassment, evidentlysent me after someone on my staff inquired. I might add here that the more complexly and gravely flawed Profile of Learning, the "higher skills" portion of the graduation rule, has been receiving much more attention recently than the basic skills tests. While this is in order, at least some balancing also seems to be in order. In each example here, what you see is precisely what the kids wrote, including their misspellings, missing words, and ungrammatical constructions. In this first example, students were asked to "Name one goal you would like to accomplish and give specific reasons why." Here's roughly two-thirds of one passing effort.
The next is in response to the same question, and constitutes the entirety of a passing "essay."
This last example, which represents about three- quarters of a student's answer, is in response to the "prompt": "Your teacher has asked you to write about one person you would choose to be if you could be someone else for one day. Name that person and give specific reasons why you would like to be that person for one day." In the interest of length, I've condensed the young woman's ragged and confusing use of paragraphs.
Can you believe it? This is what Minnesota, a state with an unusually gaudy impression of itself scholastically, is accepting from our kids? And 15 percent of them still flunked? It's enough to make you cri. -- Mitchell B. Pearlstein is president of Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank in Minneapolis. |