Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 1, 1992 TAG: 9203020224
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: E-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
What to do if too many pupils flunk the state's literacy exams? The Virginia Board of Education says it may be necessary to change the tests so more can pass.
Which sounds like another case of tails wagging dogs.
The idea behind the Literacy Passport test, begun two years ago, was to assure that pupils all over Virginia met certain standards of reading, writing and mathematics; otherwise they couldn't be promoted to the ninth grade.
Incomplete figures indicate that - after two tries in lower grades - as many as 25 percent of eighth-graders haven't yet passed the test to demonstrate their promotability.
If a large number of them fail again when the exam's given in May, something will have to be done. Like make the test easier?
Virginia's educators aren't quite saying that. But Sandra Vaughan, vice president of the state Board of Education, has said this: "Some kids, even those with A's and B's, are not passing the test. There is a large bloc of students who are unable to take tests well."
Granted. But if some students don't take tests well, maybe there are some too who get A's and B's without deserving them.
Maybe the problem is in the classroom - and, especially, in the home, where many parents want their kids simply to get passing or good grades, never mind how they earn them, or whether they're learning anything.
Very likely the Literacy Passport tests do need refining; all such tests should be revised regularly. But let's hope that won't mean dumbed down, as many textbooks have been. Nor should teachers "teach to the test," a practice that helps youngsters get by via memorizing.
On the contrary, both teaching and testing need to be revised with a different end in view: teaching to impart more knowledge of how to solve problems, how to think; testing to gauge more of this sort of knowledge, rather than the rote accumulation of facts.
The purpose of schooling is not only to transfer information and understanding; it's also to encourage reasoning, critical thought, and the self-confidence that comes with thinking for oneself.
Ideally, this is what parents should demand, what teachers should teach - and, though it may be more difficult, what standard tests should test.
Meantime, when testing indicates a problem, as the Literacy Passport tests clearly are doing, let's not assume it's the test that needs changing.
by CNB