THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 18, 1996 TAG: 9610180517
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 51 lines
Pass the Literacy Passport Test, or say goodbye to lazy summer days of doing nothing.
That's what Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr. wants to see. He is proposing that students who fail the minimum-standards test - first given in sixth grade and required for high school graduation - be forced to attend summer school or an equivalent after-school program until they pass the state-mandated test.
No such requirement exists, and Beyer said students as well as teachers and schools must be held accountable for what they do and do not achieve.
``We must aim to have every child meet the required standard - 100 percent passing the Literacy Passport Test,'' Beyer told about 110 of Virginia's school superintendents in Lynchburg on Thursday.
``There must be consequences for failing to pass. Requiring extra time in school is the right first step.''
Last year, 24,327 sixth-graders flunked their first attempt at the Literacy Passport Test of basic reading, writing and math skills. That was more than 30 percent, Beyer told the superintendents.
Since the test became mandatory for high school graduation, only 100 seniors statewide ultimately have been denied diplomas.
Still, a Beyer spokeswoman said the lieutenant governor plans to seek ratification of his proposal in the next General Assembly session, but did not expect funding to become available until the following year, in 1998. Beyer told the superintendents he proposed having the state pay for the first summer's extra study for each student - estimated at $7.5 million, given the nearly one-third failure rate - with localities picking up expenses for any further remedial study time needed.
``This is where we set the bar, and it should mean something,'' Beyer told the superintendents. ``The bottom line is, we can't continue to have a 30 percent failure rate on a test that sets a minimum standard.''
Beyer, a Democratic candidate for the governor's race next year, has outlined several education-related proposals in recent months, such as giving teachers greater authority to oust disruptive students and expanding the Head Start program.
Republican state Attorney General James S. Gilmore III also addressed the superintendents, and called for tougher penalties for assaulting teachers, immunity for teachers' good-faith disciplinary actions and liability insurance for them, and more alternative school settings for chronically disruptive students.
``It's owed to those children who're trying to do a good job in school, but at the same time, you don't - you can't - take the child who's disruptive and just throw them back into the street,'' Gilmore said in his prepared remarks. by CNB