THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 28, 1995 TAG: 9507280438
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long : 131 lines
Five years after Virginia began testing sixth-graders to ensure that they had mastered the basics in reading, writing and math, students are not performing any better.
Nearly four out of every 10 sixth-graders who took the three-part Literacy Passport Test this year failed at least one section. The failure rate in more than 100 of the state's 136 school districts increased this year over last.
Statewide, 65.6 percent of sixth-graders who took the test passed all three sections, compared with 70.4 percent last year. In 1990, the first year the test was given, 65 percent passed.
The drop comes at the same time that passing the test becomes mandatory to receive a high school diploma.
``This is depressing to me,'' state Board of Education President James P. Jones said Thursday, when the test results were released. ``After five years of giving this test, we're at the same place we were five years ago, and that's not good news for Virginia, it just isn't.''
Results in the five school districts in South Hampton Roads mirrored the state trend, with student performance taking a dive in every district compared with last year.
Of the five cities, Norfolk showed the worst performance. For the first time, fewer than half of the city's sixth-graders who took the test passed it. The city's pass rate declined by more than 9 percentage points from last year's, the biggest drop in the region.
Norfolk schools Superintendent Roy D. Nichols Jr. called the results ``unacceptable'' and said he already has begun devising a plan ``to see if we can prevent something like this from happening again.''
Nichols said the key to improvement is ``holding people accountable,'' including himself and school principals, for ensuring that teachers have the necessary training, tools and direction to do the job.
State officials said students statewide seemed to have problems on the writing section and acknowledged that the higher failure rate might be linked to changes on that part of the test.
Even so, the overall results discouraged members of Virginia's Board of Education.
Jones said the statewide results give ``added urgency'' to board's approval last month of tougher, back-to-basics Standards of Learning in math, science, English and social studies.
``The fact is that kids are just not doing any better, and I think we all agree that kids have to do better to stay on top of our changing economy and society,'' Jones said.
Several members said they were concerned about the failure of schools to teach elementary skills, especially to African-American children, who consistently have had the lowest passing rates. Statewide, 43.8 percent of black sixth-graders passed the test, compared with 73.7 percent of white kids and 78.2 percent of Asian students.
``How many more generations are we going to let pass before we do something about that?'' board member Peter G. Decker of Norfolk asked regarding the black performance level. ``We're at a status quo, and the status quo is not acceptable.''
Decker said the ``lack of an education and criminality go hand-in-hand.'' A survey conducted by the Norfolk City Jail several months ago showed that nearly half of the 1,400 inmates were blacks who lived in public housing, Decker said, even though public housing residents make up less than 5 percent of the city's overall population.
About three-fourths of the city's public-housing schoolchildren who should have graduated in 1993 either dropped out, flunked out or slipped by with a D grade average.
Board member Lil Tuttle said the key to reaching these students lies in early intervention, not remediation.
``It doesn't begin in sixth grade or in ninth grade, it begins in kindergarten,'' Tuttle said.
Students who haven't passed the test by the time they finish eighth grade are allowed to enter high school but are considered ``ungraded'' until they do pass. Beginning this fall, the stakes will be raised: Students who haven't passed it won't be able to get a high school diploma.
``Next year will be the real test,'' said state schools chief William C. Bosher Jr.
Bosher estimated that at least 500 students statewide may not be able to graduate on time next year because of their failure to pass all three sections of the test.
That number is well below 1 percent of high school seniors statewide, Bosher said. But the ``greatest indictment,'' he said, is that a student could earn enough credits to graduate yet fail to pass a test that measures ``elementary'' skills.
Bosher and Jones said that a district's relative wealth, while a factor, could not be linked statistically to student performance on the test. Some of the poorer districts, such as Lee County in Southwest Virginia, where 51 percent passed it this year, outperformed wealthier districts.
If there was a bright spot at Thursday's meeting, it was that the performance of fourth-, eighth- and 11th-graders on national standardized tests showed some progress. The majority of Virginia's students scored above the national norm in math, science, social studies, reading comprehension and language skills.
But, officials pointed out, the ``norm'' on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, taken by fourth- and eighth-graders, is outdated because it is based on scores of a group of students who took the test 10 years ago. Virginia plans to use the Iowa Tests one more year and then develop its own assessment beginning in 1997 based on the overhauled Standards of Learning. ILLUSTRATION: Graphics
JANET SHAUGHNESSY/Staff
SAMPLE QUESTIONS FROM THE LITERACY PASSPORT TEST
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
Pass rates for sixth-graders taking the Literacy Passport Test
dropped from last year's levels in all five local school districts
and the state as a whole. The chart shows percentages of those who
passed all three sections - reading, writing and math - on the first
try.
District 1995 1994 1993
1992
Chesapeake 62.3 68.2 63
60
Norfolk 44.3 53.4 52
50
Portsmouth 50.3 56.7 58
50
Suffolk 49.2 55 58
47
Virginia Beach 73.7 80.3 76.2
70
State 65.6 70.4 69.3
63.6
KEYWORDS: STANDARDIZED TESTING HAMPTON ROADS LITERACY
PASSPORT TEST RESULTS STATISTICS by CNB