Letter to editor: South Carolina lowers standards to make student test scores “rise”
Reader: SC lowers standards to make student test scores “rise”
Recently, state lawmakers and the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee bowed to the special interests of the South Carolina School Boards and School Administrators Associations to weaken the new PASS test (PACT’s replacement) for assessing student academic achievement.
The Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test (PACT) was South Carolina’s first statewide assessment program. The results of that test, used up until 2008, were disturbing.
Based on PACT scores, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) reports that in 2008 only 29 percent of South Carolina public school seventh graders, and 28 percent of eight graders were “proficient” in reading.
Amazingly, politicians and school officials have called this an “improvement” because the numbers were only 28 percent and 23 percent seven years earlier in 2001!
Even worse are the gaps between white and black, and between rich and poor, in South Carolina’s public schools. In many cases they are growing, not shrinking.
In 2002, 38 percent of white eight graders and a mere 11 percent of black eighth graders were reading proficient. That’s a gap of 27 points. Six years later, black students had risen two points, and the gain was offset by a one-point increase among their white classmates.
In the same period, the wealth-gap in eighth grade reading scores rose from 27 to 28 points. Only 14 percent of low-income eight grade students are reading proficient in South Carolina.
What is the proposed solution to these serious problems? Our state has now substituted the PASS test for the PACT test.
National testing experts at the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) have already criticized the new PASS test standards “as among the bottom quartile in a recent cross-state comparison of proficient stands within 27 states.”
NWEA noted that just switching from PACT to PASS will bring about a “dramatic” increase in the number of students meeting the standards “even with no actual improvement on student performance.”
What this means is students and schools will automatically get better test scores without actually doing any better on education.
PASS was sold to parents and teachers as a simpler, less time consuming, and more helpful test than the PACT. Those are all great qualities, but using the transition to hide a lowering of student and school standards is disgraceful.
Those who push for the lower expectations are quick to change the subject. They argue that money is the problem and more taxes should be collected for public schools. What they don’t mention is that schools in South Carolina are projected to receive on average $11,000 in public money for each and every student this year. Some school districts receive thousands of dollars more per student each year.
They also cannot explain how ever-more-money has not led to better public schools.
Local school boards and administrators need to support and enforce high standards in our public schools. In order to do that, parents and voters may need to raise the standards to which they are holding their local public officials.
Lowering expectations is not the solution. It is an insult to teachers and students.
Neil Mellen
Communications Director, South Carolinians for Responsible Government
Columbia SC.
Mr. Mullin serves on the South Carolina Educational Broadband Service Commission and served on the State’s Taskforce for Computer Adaptive Student Assessment.
Related posts:
- Letter to editor: Administrators and school boards want to dumb down SC’s school evaluations
- Editorial comment: Beaufort County School District flunks “transparency” test
- SC Education Oversight Committee says our schools are failing us because our leaders are unwilling to face the truth and make hard decisions
- Letter to editor: What about the public schools?
- Editor: An open letter to Valerie Truesdale, superintendent of education
