Thompson: The Benefits and Costs of Graduation Exams

After reading  Sarah Butrymowicz's  Hechinger Ed analysis of Oklahoma’s new graduation law, I  remain agnostic on whether students should be required to pass four End of Instruction tests to earn a diploma. About 16% of the state’s seniors began the year needing to pass one or more of their exit examinations. A law has been filed to delay the graduation requirement because the lack of a degree, for instance, would exclude young people from joining the military. Butrymowicz notes, however, that nearly a quarter of applicants also fail their armed forces entry exam, thus implying the short term pain might be worthwhile if Oklahoma stays the course. The problem is that the law is holding the students of our poorest districts accountable in order to hold the adults in those systems accountable. When today’s seniors were freshman, in 2009, the Oklahoma City School System became accountable for 1,524 "Full Academic Year" 9^thgraders. At the beginning of this year, their class was down to around 1,300 seniors. About 780, had passed all four tests. The district has made heroic efforts to offer remediation to about 40% of the seniors who need to retake their test(s). But no mention is made of the rest of their class who do not count against their schools because they were "highly mobile." We cannot create a greater good for more students until we remember that a total of 3,376 kids were OKCPS freshmen in 2009, meaning the best case scenario is that a third of them will graduate  from that system.- J T (@drjohnthompson)Image via.

Comments

[Mary]

I read the story you linked, John, but there's no mention of the original 9th grade cohort size. Where did you find the figure for 3,376 original freshmen? That's so important.

This has happened in my state, too, which is also under the sway of Achieve and similar entities. Kids just disappear from rosters and data bases, so reformers and pundits can ignore them. When you're the adult right in the room with a child who is being made to disappear, it is just harrowing and heartbreaking. The "mobile" children know they are being pushed out. Often, they break down and cry, or their parents do.

Sometimes, I admit, their teacher does, too.

[john]

Mary,
I got it from page 34 of the paper copy of the 2009 OKCPS Statistical Profile. It is never easy to find their electronic version, and even though I've used it online plenty of times, with their new website, I couldn't find it.

But, I found their latest Profile, and the numbers are almost identitical. They are on page 21.
Proilphttp://okcps.schooldesk.net/Portals/Okcs/District/docs/CK/2010-2011%20STATISTICAL%20PROFILE%20-%20Cover.pdf

[Mary]

Yes, There it is. It's sitting right there, but everybody pretends they don't see the discrepency. Same thing in Massachusetts. You've headlined your comment "the cost and benefit of graduation exams", but what about the cost of a massive conspiracy to throw 2/3 of Oklahoma' City's young onto the streets, uncounted, a generation preyed on by the same eduventure privateers who run the whole rotten system, and are accountable to nobody?

Teacher colleagues, fight this in your classrooms, however the cheats and liars "evaluate" you. don't let them use their statistical fraud to hold us "accountable" and push us out for daring to expend our strength and resources teaching the kids they've targeted to disposess.

Please take this up, John. Everybody who mouths the word "accountabillity" and then looks away from this massive, everyday crime is an accomplice. Stop worrying about polarizing or offending somebody and speak up for this disposessed generation.