THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 2, 1996 TAG: 9606020316
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 90 lines
A literacy test that Virginia high school seniors must have passed by this year to graduate has become a stumbling block for only a handful of students in Hampton Roads.
In what local educators regard as a success, fewer than 10 seniors taking regular education classes will not get a diploma in graduation ceremonies this month because they failed to pass the Literacy Passport Test.
This marks the first year since the test was introduced six years ago that passing it is a requirement for graduation in Virginia.
``I feel it's a good, healthy sign,'' said Clyde Colwell, coordinator of reading and English in Norfolk public schools.
In Portsmouth and Suffolk, all seniors expecting to graduate have passed the sixth-grade-level test, designed to ensure that students have a grasp of basic skills in reading, writing and math.
In Virginia Beach, the state's second-largest school system, three seniors in a graduating class approaching 5,000 had not passed at least one section of the three-part test.
``I have mixed feelings,'' said K. Edwin Brown, newly named assistant superintendent for accountability in Virginia Beach. ``On the one hand, we would hope that no one would fail it, but on the other hand, three isn't bad.''
In Chesapeake and Norfolk, each district has two seniors who haven't passed the test.
But in Norfolk, Colwell said, both seniors have been granted state waivers to try to pass the test in time for graduation. There were ``extenuating circumstances,'' Colwell said: one had moved to the city from out-of-state in mid-year and had never taken the test. The other was a transfer student who had only one chance to take the test. The test was offered twice during the senior year.
Seniors who aren't granted waivers will be given another chance to pass in July.
Virginia began offering the Literacy Passport Test to sixth-graders during the 1989-90 school year. The General Assembly approved the testing as a way to ensure students were at least learning basic skills.
Last year in Hampton Roads, the percentage of sixth-graders who passed all three sections of the test the first time they took it ranged from a high of 74 percent in Virginia Beach to a low of 44 percent in Norfolk.
Every school district in the region has programs to help students who fail it acquire the skills they need to pass. Students retake it every year until they pass, and officials said the small number of seniors being held up at graduation this year is proof that the programs are working.
State education officials last week could not estimate how many high school seniors statewide have yet to pass the test. Earlier in the year, they guessed that as many as 500 might not get diplomas, but officials said they now expect the number will be much lower.
Seniors most likely to have had trouble passing include students taking English as a second language - more of an issue in Northern Virginia - and special education students hoping to get a standard state diploma instead of a special education certificate, officials said.
Colwell said as many as 11 Norfolk special education students in that category were waiting to find out if they had passed the test, last given by the state in February. He said results should be in by Monday.
The new graduation requirement has upset some parents. A mother in Virginia Beach whose son is one of the three seniors failing to pass the test has asked school officials that he be allowed to retake it before graduation.
The mother asked not to be identified to protect her son from embarrassment. She said her husband is in the military and that the family moved to Virginia Beach last summer from Okinawa, Japan.
The boy, who has a learning disability, needs to pass the writing section, which he failed by only two points, she said. He has enough academic course credits to graduate, she said.
``It's bad because this child has worked hard, and now he has been slammed one week before graduation,'' the mother said. ``He's already bought his class ring, his invitations and his cap and gown.''
Virginia Beach officials said they have agreed to let the boy march with his class, but he won't get his diploma.
Since the Virginia Beach boy took the test both times it was offered during the regular school year, state officials said he would have to wait until the test is given in July.
``I regret the hardship for any family,'' said William C. Bosher Jr., state superintendent of public instruction. ``I understand the trauma, but I also realize it's important to have standards, and even in the most difficult of circumstances, those standards must be applied.''
Graduation requirements are expected to get tougher: The state Board of Education, possibly as soon as 2001, plans to require that high school juniors pass a tougher academic-skills test before being allowed to graduate.
KEYWORDS: STANDARDIZED TESTING TIDEWATER
HAMPTON ROADS SCHOOLS by CNB