THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 29, 1994 TAG: 9407290554
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
Three out of 10 sixth-graders in Virginia haven't mastered the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic, but overall the state's students are making steady progress, education officials said Thursday.
State educators, while acknowledging room for improvement, saw good news in the results of this year's Literacy Passport and other standardized tests that measure what kids have learned in class.
``If you look over the years, Virginia tests not only exceed the national average, they're improving,'' said Robley S. Jones, president of the Virginia Education Association. ``It seems to me to belie the general perception that public schools are failing.''
The consistently poor academic performance of black students drew the most comment when the test results were released at a state Board of Education meeting.
``We as a board need to concentrate on this problem,'' said board member Peter G. Decker, a Norfolk attorney.
Decker said there is a direct correlation between low achievement by black students and the state's prison population - 80 percent of the inmates are black, while African-Americans comprise 18 percent of the state's overall population.
``We've got to set a policy to reverse this,'' Decker said. ``It's not a trend, it's a reality.''
On the Literacy Passport, a test designed by Virginia to ensure that students have mastered the fundamentals before entering high school, more than half of the state's black students - 51.1 percent - failed all three sections of the test in 1994. That's compared with 21.7 percent of white students.
Those findings are evident in Norfolk, where the student body is 60 percent black and inner-city schools draw from low-income public housing neighborhoods. Overall, 53.4 percent of Norfolk sixth-graders passed the Literacy Passport, the lowest rate in South Hampton Roads.
The Norfolk School Board, disturbed by similar results in recent years, last month hired an administrator, Fred M. Oliver, whose primary job will be to boost the academic achievement of poor and black students.
In discussing the district's test scores and remedies, spokesman George Raiss said, ``I think with the administration's reorganization and the hiring of Mr. Oliver, it's very safe to say the No. 1 impetus for those changes was to improve academic performance'' of all students.
In Richmond, another urban system similar to Norfolk, only 37.8 percent of sixth-graders passed the test.
``Obviously we'd like to do better, especially with the minority and low-income students,'' said James P. Jones, president of the state board.
Since Virginia implemented the Literacy Passport five years ago, the percentage of sixth-graders passing the three-part test has fluctuated slightly. In 1989-90, the initial year, 65 percent of sixth-graders passed the first time, compared with 70.4 percent this year.
Students who fail any portion of the test can retake it in subsequent years. They must pass the test to be considered ninth-graders, and beginning in 1996 they must meet the requirement to earn a high school diploma.
This year, 8,637 - or about 10 percent of the 87,506 students who passed the test - were seventh- and eighth-graders or were already in high school. Of the 1,808 ``ungraded'' students in ninth and 10th grades, 478 of them - about one-quarter - passed the test.
Virginia students are holding their own in nationwide test results.
On the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, for example, fourth- and eighth-graders scored above the national average in every category tested, including such subjects as math, social studies, science and language arts.
Eleventh-graders taking the Test of Achievement and Proficiency also scored above the national average in every category.
Even so, the average scores on the two standardized tests declined slightly from 1993 results.
Saying she wanted to do some ``consciousness raising,'' Doris Redfield, a state testing and research specialist, noted disparities in scores by gender. On the Iowa tests, for instance, girls scored about the same as boys in science in fourth grade, but by the 11th grade girls scored significantly lower. Girls scored consistently better than boys in language arts and reading. ILLUSTRATION: Staff color chart
The Percentage That Passed
Source: Respective school districts and the state Department of
Education
For copy of chart, see microfilm
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
STANDAZDIZED TESTS
by CNB