DATE: Wednesday, February 26, 1997          TAG: 9702260446

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS 

        STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  101 lines

PARENTS, STUDENTS, SCHOOLS: DIFFERENT TAKES ON NEW RULES

Jumping up and cheering is not the expected reaction from a high-schooler told that the state wants to require more courses to earn a diploma. Tougher courses. Plus having to pass a new standardized test in 11th grade.

David M. Contreras-Garay didn't defy expectations Tuesday.

``Raising the standards will make it harder to graduate,'' grimaced David, a 16-year-old junior at Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach, even though the new requirements proposed by the state superintendent of public instruction likely won't affect him.

``My friends, they usually go for the minimum,'' David said. ``It's really going to mess them up.''

``But when you get out, it will be better,'' countered schoolmate Melissa A. Jock, a 14-year-old freshman.

``I think they should need something to graduate. What's the point of school if you're not going to hit the standards?''

``I think you work at your own pace,'' David contended.

``But in a job, you can't do that,'' Melissa responded.

That's the point, state schools Superintendent Richard T. La Pointe said Monday when he released his proposed changes in the regulations governing how public schools operate in Virginia, the Standards of Accreditation. He argued that students leaving high school will be better prepared for college, vocational training or jobs if they're required to take more science, history and math - including at least a year of algebra.

La Pointe's proposals, formally presented Tuesday to the state Board of Education in Richmond, include judging schools more on how their students perform or improve on new standardized tests now being written to measure how well they're learning Virginia's new, stricter guidelines on what should be taught in each grade, the Standards of Learning.

If adopted by the Board of Education, the new accreditation standards would take effect in July, although the board voted Tuesday to phase in the new graduation requirements more slowly than proposed, so they won't take full effect until 2003.

Educators and parents generally praised the proposed standards Tuesday, albeit with some reservations.

``Our customers, our consumers, our public, judge us by outcome measures. . Superintendent Richard D. Trumble, who earlier proposed toughening up graduation requirements in his city.

``Oh, it's good news for us. It's very much in keeping with what we're trying to do. I'm going to have to hurry to stay ahead of the state board.''

Roy D. Nichols Jr., Trumble's counterpart in Norfolk, also advocates using student performance to gauge how well schools are doing their jobs. But he said he wants further assurances that improvement will matter as much as actual scores, since some school districts serve more at-risk and undereducated children than others. La Pointe said improvement will be a factor.

``I know that our kids can do better - we just don't expect them to do as well as they should,'' Nichols said. ``People are working as hard as they can right now. . . . What we'll have to do is work more efficiently.

``Yeah, it's a challenge. I see these new standards as being a definite challenge for us. But one that we definitely have to take on.''

The proposed regulations' higher standards and calls for more parent and community involvement pleased Alfred R. Butler, executive director of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents in Charlottesville. Concerning him, however, was the potential fiscal impact of requiring more and tougher classes.

``When you're talking about 100 percent of the students in Virginia taking algebra, you're going to need some more math teachers,'' Butler said.

A few parents, while supporting higher standards, worried about how they would be implemented.

``I hate standardized tests,'' said Jackie Johnson, a mother of three in Portsmouth. ``You have children who are smart who don't test well.''

Jane S. Brooks, president of the Virginia Beach Council of PTAs, said her organization has taken no stand on the proposed accreditation standards, but that she as a parent worried whether localities would be saddled with higher costs and how children's class time would be affected.

``I can see we're trying to standardize, bring all the children in Virginia up to a higher level of success,'' Brooks said. ``But on the other hand, I would hate to think children were spending a lot of their class time, spending time learning for the test and not learning all they should be in their classes. I think they call it `teaching to the test?'

``What do you do with a third grader who's making A's and B's and takes that test and doesn't pass it - do you not pass them?''

Brooks also said she worried about students whose skills don't lie in academics.

``Not every child is cut out of a paper-doll book,'' Brooks said. ``Some children may find their success and their future in the arts field. By cutting down and eliminating that, what are you doing to their chances? . . .

``I don't know if it's good or bad. I'm hoping. I've got my fingers crossed.''

Some other Princess Anne High students had no such uncertainty. They already have too many tests, they said.

``I don't think it's cool, because the work we're doing now is already hard,'' said Ebony J. Overton, a 16-year-old sophomore.

``If it was good enough for all of them before, it's good enough for us,'' agreed Angela L. Mayfield, a 15-year-old repeating her freshman year because, she said, she stopped going to classes last year due to ``too much pressure'' in school.

``Do we get to vote on that new proposal?'' Angela asked, laughing. ``Is that just for Virginia?

``I'm moving.'' KEYWORDS: EDUCATION

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