WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2000
Teachers find proficiency tests to be deficient
By Erik Burriss
Staff Writer
MARION --That proficiency tests are doing the whole state a disservice was the main idea expressed at an Ohio Education Association forum Tuesday night.
More than 200 educators, parents and students attended the event at the Tri-Rivers Career Center, along with State Sen. Larry Mumper, R-Marion, and Reps. Robert Gooding, D-Waldo, and Tony Core, R-Bellefontaine. Mary Fleure, Democratic candidate for the 26th Senate District, also was present. The forum was one of 33 -- one in each Ohio Senate District -- sponsored by the OEA to discuss proficiency testing.
The tests are administered to fourth, sixth, ninth and 12th graders. Students must pass the ninth grade test to graduate from high school. The test scores also are used to rate each school in the state.
"I don't like what they do at any level," Jim Carey, a teacher in the River Valley school district, said. "Children are not ready for abstract thought when they are 9 or 10 years old. You're setting them up for failure."
Additionally, teachers spend more time preparing their students for the tests than actually teaching, he said.
Proficiency tests are not needed for all students, especially the 80 percent who will get jobs as skilled or semi-skilled laborers, said Jean Minnick, a Bellefontaine High School teacher.
"You don't need to read at a 10th-grade level to work at Honda," she said.
Other teachers questioned the appropriateness of test questions to their intended grade level.
"Average kids are flunking," Cathy Wise, a fourth-grade teacher from Bellefontaine, said.
Shirley Kleinfelder, a retired grade school teacher, went even farther and said there are A and B students who cannot pass the tests.
Columbian High School teacher Jane Tomaszewski said there is no accountability in the way tests are graded. Not only do the teachers and students get no feedback on what questions were missed, the grading process itself is suspect.
"A part-time pizza delivery boy is not my idea of qualified," she said, referring to the people that work for the North Carolina company hired to grade the tests.
The resources that go into testing could be put to better uses, like new buildings and smaller classes, several people said.
"If you want students to do better, then you put less students in each room," Carey said.
Delaware School Board member Mary Ann Gable said the tests need major revisions.
"I don't object to assessments," she said, but "we're not where we should be as far as the quality of the test."
Gooding and Fleure said they support a moratorium on further testing.
"I don't think there's any way (the General Assembly) can straighten it out" in the two months left in the session, he said.
Fluere said she opposed the idea of having one test determine a student's graduation or promotion to the next grade.
The Republican legislators said tests, of one sort or another, will be required by the Supreme Court.
"They're going to expect some kind of accountability," Mumper said.
Mumper said the tests need to ask questions suitable for the age of the students and the scores needed for passage need to be set at reasonable levels. He also proposed that the 12th-grade test be optional, but students that pass it receive a $500 scholarship.
The legislators will discuss the public's concerns with the governor's
Commission on Student Success, which will take it up with the Ohio Board of Education, the senator said. The board will then be responsible for implementing any changes to the tests.