THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 29, 1996 TAG: 9603290453
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 218 lines
He hopes to attend college and star in the National Basketball Association. But first, Lamont Artist has to pass eighth grade.
At 16 years old and a rangy 6 foot 4, Lamont looms a head taller than fellow students at Norfolk's Lafayette-Winona Middle School. He should be in high school, but he's failed two grades. He repeated third grade, he says, because ``I was playing around and being the class clown. I didn't really care then.''
This year, he's back in eighth grade because he flunked math and science - his weakest subjects, he says.
But now, Lamont, who says he's focused on college and sports, is determined to make a rebound. In the first semester, he pulled down a C average, getting one-on-one help in math and reading skills in a special class with 11 others.
``As I saw my friends pass me, then I started caring,'' Lamont said. ``I've stopped messing around, and I'm doing my work.''
A report released Thursday by the Virginia Department of Education shows that Lamont has plenty of company in South Hampton Roads.
In the 1994-95 school year, 20 percent of eighth-graders in urban Norfolk and Portsmouth - one of every five students - had failed at least one grade and were a year or more behind, the report shows.
That's more than three times the state average of 6 percent.
In Suffolk, which is mostly rural, 13 percent of eighth-graders were overage. An overage eighth-grader is 15 or older, the state says.
The report also pointed to failures in elementary schools. The three districts' percentages of overage fourth-graders were at least twice as high as the state average of 3 percent - 6 percent in Norfolk, 8 percent in Portsmouth and 10 percent in Suffolk. A fourth-grader 11 or older is considered overage.
The problem was not as magnified in the more suburban school districts of Chesapeake and Virginia Beach. There, the percentages were at or below state averages.
Despite the challenges posed by failing students, local schools have made improvements and are producing success stories, according to the state's report card - an annual, 5-year-old survey of all 133 districts known as the Outcome Accountability Project.
More students, including minorities, in every local district are taking tougher academic courses and becoming better prepared for college, technical fields and the workplace, for example. Several districts boosted school attendance. Portsmouth managed a high school dropout rate of 1 percent, the best in the region and a decline from 5 percent five years ago.
Even so, danger signs are apparent. In Virginia Beach, the high school dropout rate has risen from 5 percent to 8 percent since 1990-91, now above the state average of 5 percent. Norfolk's high school dropout rate, 12 percent, is tied with Halifax schools as the worst in Virginia.
And while some gains have been made on test scores, most of the districts' scores on state and national standardized exams have remained flat or have dropped.
Only Virginia Beach students consistently have scored at or above the state average on those tests, including the state Literacy Passport Test, given in the sixth grade and designed to measure students' grasp of basic skills in reading, writing and arithmetic.
Performance in every local district dropped on the passport test last year, and the test has been an obstacle for many of the eighth-grade students who have failed a grade, educators said.
Problems on the passport test are reflected in the percentage of overage students in the region who, for whatever reason, must repeat a grade - a persistent problem during the past five years.
Many overage students live in poverty, and their parents or guardians often lack high school diplomas, educators said. They start school already behind children with more advantages. It's often left to the schools to help children reverse this cycle.
``I'd like to see our kids become haves instead of have-nots,'' said Carroll R. Bailey Jr., principal of Hunt-Mapp Middle School in Portsmouth, where an estimated 15 percent of the school's 400 eighth-graders have failed at least once.
``It is a group that, if you do not do some hopeful things with them, they will give up hope,'' Bailey said.
But the problem is a complex one, carrying serious economic and social costs, and it will not be solved without the help of families and the communities, educators say.
``It looks as if it's the school system's fault, but you have to look at the home, the family,'' said Thomas B. Lockamy Jr., assistant superintendent for school governance in Norfolk. ``What kind of support are they getting at home? Is study time provided? How many kids are out on the street at 9, 10 and 11 at night? You watch them leave school without books. You've got all those variables. And then you've got parents who try very hard and their kids just learn slower.''
In simple dollars and cents, taxpayers spend twice the money when a student must repeat a grade.
For instance, in Norfolk, 5,097 children failed a grade in the 1993-94 school year - about 15 percent of the district's 33,434 students. At the time, the district spent an average of $5,848 to educate each pupil, putting the price of failure at $29.8 million. The total budget that year was $173 million.
Ten years ago, a study commission appointed by then-Gov. Gerald Baliles called the cost of student failure ``staggering.'' It estimated that Virginia could save $50 million a year if it halved the number of students who flunked a grade.
Since then, with pressure on schools to improve, the percentage of students statewide who have failed a grade has declined - from 7.3 percent in 1984-85 to 5 percent in 1993-94, the last year for which figures are available.
But the expense remains huge: 51,501 students failed a grade in Virginia in 1993-94. With $5,312 spent on average to educate each student statewide, the cost of failure that year was an estimated $273.5 million.
Educators acknowledge that school districts spend more on children who take longer to graduate. But they argue that the social costs would be much greater if under-achieving children are simply passed along with their peers - a practice commonly called social promotion.
``What would be the costs to society over their lifetime to pass them through the system when they have not mastered certain competencies?'' said Milton Liverman, an assistant superintendent in Suffolk. The annual cost to house a prison inmate in Virginia is about $17,000, he noted.
The human costs are more troubling, educators said.
Once in middle school, overage students are often disruptive and are more likely to drop out in frustration, leaving school unprepared for good-paying jobs and increasing their chances of becoming a drag on society - statistics of poverty, crime or imprisonment.
``We're better off to spend the extra money to give them some marketable skills while we have the opportunity, rather than pay later,'' Liverman said.
Reasons for failure vary with each student. But Lafayette-Winona's Lamont Artist and two classmates who also are repeating eighth grade lay the blame primarily on themselves.
``It's the students' fault,'' said Eric Palmer, a 15-year-old repeating eighth grade this year. ``A teacher is there to help students, but in my classes there are students running around and talking and not listening. If everybody would sit down and pay attention like they're supposed to, there wouldn't be any problem, and students would get the education they need.''
Michael Wiggins, also 15, said he is repeating eighth grade because of a car accident that caused him to miss several weeks of school. He fell so far behind in his school work that when he returned, he became discouraged and began misbehaving in class.
He was suspended, which threw him further behind.
``That's what drives most students to the street: They feel they're so behind,'' Wiggins said. ``I gave up. It was stupid. I could have tried.''
Wiggins said teachers need to do more to motivate under-achieving students. And he said there's a need for more programs - both in schools and in the community - to help students build study skills and confidence in their academic abilities.
Lamont said many students become dejected because, like him, when they fail a grade, they are forced to retake courses they passed.
``It bothers me a lot,'' Lamont said. ``I'm like the oldest in this school. They're like kids to me now.''
The principal at Lafayette-Winona, Stephen Peters, said Norfolk is considering a plan to allow students to advance with their peers while repeating only classes they failed instead of an entire grade.
``There has to be a built-in system to keep them from repeating the classes where they've already shown mastery,'' Peters said.
Local school districts have made inroads into the problem, especially in elementary schools. Norfolk, for instance, has halved its percentage of overage fourth-graders, from 13 percent in 1990-91 to 6 percent in 1994-95, still double the state average of 3 percent.
Suffolk dropped from 15 percent to 10 percent, while Portsmouth's rate has dipped from 12 percent to 8.
Reducing the failure rate early is viewed as critical because many students begin tuning out as early as fourth grade: Schoolwork gets tougher and students are expected to be up to speed in reading, writing and math. But, as results on the Literacy Passport Test show, that's not the case for a lot of students.
``If they come in weak in any skills, it's difficult for them to keep up,'' said Betty Hudgins, a reading specialist at Norfolk's Oakwood Elementary. Officials say the improvement in elementary schools may be linked to an increase in preschool programs and a move toward smaller classes since the late 1980s.
And educators are optimistic that progress will continue: the General Assembly two years ago launched a statewide initiative to create classes for disadvantaged 4-year-olds and to reduce class sizes in kindergarten through third grades, particularly in districts with higher poverty rates, such as Norfolk, Portsmouth and Suffolk.
The state money this year will enable some schools to reduce class size to 15 students per teacher. More than 200 Hampton Roads residents who met for seven weeks last fall to study ways to improve education identified smaller class sizes as their top priority.
Many parents share the concern about large classes.
``The size of classes, the schools they build, are too large,'' said Suffolk parent Debbie Gaffos. ``Could you imagine having 26 or 27 fourth-graders and a couple are lagging behind the rest? You don't have the time.''
Hudgins said Oakwood is hoping to improve the performance of a group of underachieving fourth- and fifth-graders this year by assigning a pair of teachers to work one-on-one with them. The teachers will try to ``blast them with knowledge,'' Hudgins said, using a combination of computers and intensive instruction in reading and writing.
Other districts are doing similar things. And as local districts move to strengthen academics, their efforts to reach failing students will increase in importance, educators said.
``There has to be a capturing process,'' Lafayette-Winona's Peters said. ``If it's not happening at home, it's the schools' responsibility. We have to help restore hope to these kids. For Lamont, it's the NBA. You have to show them the payoff in the long range.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photoillustration/The Virginian-Pilot
Overage students: Norfolk, Portsmouth and Suffolk had double or
triple the state's rate of students who had failed at least once.
Better prepartion: Students in every district are taking tougher
courses - better for college, technical fields and the workplace.
Dropout rate: Portsmouth's 1 percent rate is the region's best. But
the Beach's is up, and Norfolk is tied for the state's worst.
Literacy Passport Test: Scores dropped for every local district
except the Beach - as with scores on other standardized tests.
Graphics
WHAT IS THE OAP?
This annual report card tracks the performance of Virginia's 133
school districts. Called the Outcome Accountability Project, the
report gives the public a barometer of school performance. It has
been issued since 1990-91.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR SCHOOLS
THREATS FOR SCHOOLS
[For complete graphics, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: SCHOOLS REPORT CARD by CNB