
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, October 9, 1993                   TAG: 9310090148
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

SPAGNOLO: TESTS OVERBLOWN

Virginia's public school system must put more emphasis on results and less emphasis on standardized tests to overcome dropout and illiteracy rates, the state school superintendent said Friday.

"It is important that we establish rigorous standards and have high expectations for students," Joe Spagnolo said at the annual NAACP State Convention. "But those standards and expectations must be expressed in a manner which the public understands and can support."

Last week, the Virginia Board of Education withdrew the Common Core of Learning educational reform initiatives that Spagnolo had supported. Gov. Douglas Wilder said the outcome-based initiatives should be rejected because of public opposition and the expense of carrying them out.

Opponents said the planned reforms would "dumb down" educational basics, teach values contrary to those of many parents and prove impossible for busy teachers to implement. Supporters said the initiatives would do none of those things, but some agreed the proposal had never been presented to the public in an understandable form.

Spagnolo said standardized tests suffer from severe inadequacies and should not be the only measure used to examine what students know and are able to do.

"You have to take cognizance of the fact that norm-referenced standardized tests are not fair to youngsters from different cultural backgrounds," he said.

Spagnolo said organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People must take leadership roles in public education reforms "if we really expect to make a change."

"Responsible people cannot sit and watch as fundamental institutions in our society, like our public schools, deteriorate," he said.

After citing problems in public education, including high illiteracy rates in the workforce and in prisons, Spagnolo said, "an even more devastating fact is that if a student happens to be black, the likelihood of being successful in school is diminished further."

While 25 percent of all students drop out of school before completing, 40 percent of black students leave before their education is completed, he said. Whereas 34 percent of sixth-graders fail to pass the literacy passport test, nearly 50 percent of blacks in that grade fail the test.

"More and more, our students are becoming disillusioned, disaffected and disenfranchised," Spagnolo said. "It's time to stop talking about what the problem is and start doing something about it."

by CNB