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State test bars thousands from high school diploma

Ohanian Comment: I have been in contact with the father of a high school senior in the same position as Brooke Proctor: She passed all her high school courses, met all the requirements for graduation--except the state test.

What is going on when just 15 of the 50 seniors who took the test passed? When a student with a 4.0 average failed?

Students are offered tutoring over the summer and in many cities a special graduation ceremony. But they miss out on joining with their friends in the big event of school life: high school graduation. School boards' denying them the right to "walk" with their peers seems like petty thuggery.

by Scott Stephens and Angela Townsend

Brooke Proctor was looking forward to graduating with her classmates on June 5.

But instead of strolling across a commencement stage, the Euclid High School senior will be enrolling in summer school.

Brooke is among thousands of Ohio seniors who learned last week that they will be denied diplomas this spring because they failed one or more parts of the Ohio Proficiency Test.

Theirs is the first graduating class in the state required to pass the five-part exam, which educators agree is a more-challenging exam than the old Ohio proficiency test. Students take the test in 10th grade and get six chances to retake it through their senior year. In many cases, failure to master even one subject on the test is enough to keep the cap and gown in mothballs.

Brooke, like many students, stumbled on the science portion of the exam.

"She has all her credits and everything - it just came down to the test," said Tracy Youngblood, Brooke's mother. "It's a hard test. Everybody said that if you study hard and work hard, you can pass it. She studied hard, but she couldn't pass science."

She won't be alone. Before the test was given in March, state education officials said as many as 30,000 seniors needed to pass one or more parts to get their diplomas. Cleveland had more than 1,700 students needing to pass at least one part of the March exam.

As the test results roll in, many districts are trying to determine how many seniors won't graduate.

Some of the students wouldn't have graduated because they didn't pass enough courses. But educators agree that the test will have a great impact.

At Bedford High School, 15 of the 50 seniors who took the test this spring passed. At Valley Forge High School in Parma Heights, 13 of the 32 seniors who took the test passed.

"The test is certainly more demanding than the old proficiency test was," said Russell Brown, executive director of research and assessment for the Cleveland schools.

In Toledo, 147 seniors - about 10 percent of the district's graduating class - failed at least one portion of the exam. On Monday, nearly three dozen of those students protested outside the district's administrative headquarters, including a 4.0 grade-point student who has been accepted at the University of Toledo.

"We're seeing more students not pass," said Columbus schools Superintendent Gene Harris. "This is not much different than 1991, the first year for the proficiency test."

Virtually all districts will offer students such as Brooke a chance to be tutored on the specific subject area they missed in summer school. Then, in July, they'll get one final chance to take the graduation test. Many districts have a later-summer gradation for those who pass.

In some districts, heightened awareness - or fear - of the graduation test resulted in improved graduation percentages. In Lorain, for instance, the percentage of seniors who will not graduate because they didn't pass a test dropped from 14 percent to 11 percent.

And although hundreds of Cleveland seniors are expected to be denied diplomas, there appear to be some gains for students who took the test, including sophomores and juniors, Brown said. Another good sign: More students are showing up and taking the test.

"We hope our underclassmen are aware how important this test is," said Lincoln Haughton, Cleveland's deputy chief of secondary education. "If the community really pushed this and parents really understood that this test is a must, I think we'd see far greater success."

— Scott Stephens and Angela Townsend
Cleveland Plain Dealer
2007-05-27


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