THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 22, 1996 TAG: 9606210020
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: 32 lines
The Literacy Passport Test has been the subject of an article, an editorial, talk-radio discussion and much other publicity recently. What concerns me is that the schools are claiming that this is a ``sixth-grade-level'' test. By any meaningful standard, it is not a sixth-grade-level test but a third-grade-level test.
If the students I tutor reach the third-grade level in reading, they invariably pass the Passport Test. This holds true with all of the different reading-assessment tests that I have used.
A similar situation exists with the Iowa (ITBS) tests that are administered every spring. Generally, those test scores come back about three grade levels above where the student really is. If the parent wants an accurate score, he should just subtract three grade levels from the stated results, or else contact a home-schooling supply house and test his child himself.
It is still true that people are graduating who cannot read their diplomas. Special-education students are not required to pass the Passport Tests, and these illiterates are still graduating. What's more, I asked a student this week who had barely passed the Passport Test this year to read my 1976 Lake Taylor diploma. He could not read it all!
The Literarcy Passport Test is misnamed. Third-grade level is not literacy.
TIMOTHY MINIUM
Co-director
East Side Individual Tutoring
Norfolk, June 16, 1996 by CNB