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9486 in the collection
Plantiff Challenges Tennessee Exit Exam
Ohanian Comment: A lot has happened since we first read about Latricia Wilson. She sent me this update. Kudos to this young woman for fighting back against a system that denied her a high school diploma.
The Federal Class Action Lawsuit that was filed against the Tennessee Department of Education will go to pretrial on 9/05/2008 at 9:30 am.The pretrial will be held in the Federal Building. The class action law suit was filed on July 24,2007, on behalf of thousands of students that did not receive a high school diploma for failure to pass the Gateway/ Exam.The Gateway exam is a high school graduation requirement.
This lawsuit is challenging the constitutionality of the testing requirement. This is the first time that a standardized test has been legally challenged within the state of Tennessee.The class action lawsuit filed is the first law suit to be filed in the state to challenge the No Child Left Behind & State Law requirement in this state.
You can hear Latricia's testimony to the Tennessee General Assembly, joint committee, 5/22/2007.
Donna Metler Comment: Latricia has a real point. The students now graduating from Memphis high schools are ones who bore the full burden of Dr. Gerry House's experiment in "education models", where each school HAD to pick one of several models and follow it. House recieved national attention as an education leader for this, and Memphis was lauded. Too bad that after she took a high paying job elsewhere, the interim replacement actually looked at the data and realized that literacy rates were around 20-30% in many schools. I believe the sum total lasted 8 years.
In my case, as a teacher, I came in at the tail end of it, and got stuck with two different models in action-the first being the horrific Success for All, where children who struggled at reading were taught the same material year, after year, after year while being given passing grades for continuing to sit with 6 yr olds at age 12 because they were "working at their own level", and special ed referrals were at a standstill because you couldn't refer a child as long as they were "making progress at their own level"--even if that level was several years below where you'd expect for their chronological age.
A large number of parents had no idea that their 6th grader was reading on a 1st or 2nd grade level, because while the report cards stated their child's SFA level, it didn't explain what that meant.
The second looked better on paper-it was "Accelerated Schools", which had the attitude that "teach all children like they're gifted, and they will be". And having spent a year stuck in the "back to basics" netherworld of SFA, that was very appealing. No basals, thematic teaching, and higher order thinking.
Only problem is that we had kids who could tell you in depth about Ancient Egypt or the Civil War-but couldn't read, write, or calculate. They'd made a lot of dioramas, posters, and craft projects, watched a lot of Discovery Channel documentaries, cooked in the Social Studies lab, done hands-on experiments,
But somehow, they'd missed the core.
When Dr. Johnnie Watson took the helm, he actually looked at the numbers from the (then mostly ignored) state test-and immediately purchased books and materials and started work on district-wide curriculum maps. The goal was to give teachers a set structure to follow, but still allow flexibility.
And it was starting to work--then NCLB came in, and everything ossified and structure became the complete goal.
The kids now graduating from Memphis high schools lived through the models, where what they were taught depended on what the school "model" was. They lived through the reconstruction when a huge number of principals and teachers who were emotionally invested in the models and actually liked them quit and when a lot of alternative route teachers were hired.
And they've lived through the district under scrutiny due to NCLB, school reconstructions, and multiple superintendents, all of whom have their own way of doing things.
Latritia deserves to win her lawsuit and get whatever compensatory coursework is needed paid for. So does every other graduate who is struggling in large part due to their school system being used as a laboratory for so many years.
WREG.com
Gateway Fight Heads to Federal Court
Memphis - Latricia Wilson failed her Gateway test, but the Memphis City Schools graduate knows plenty about pulling together forces to fight for her cause.
She has a state lawmaker and a high profile attorney on her side challenging Tennessee's Gateway Tests for students.
"I feel like the system has failed me and other students as well and also eliminated me and other thousands other students from being able to achieve their goals,: says Wilson.
Latricia failed the math part of the Gateway and graduated with a specialized diploma, but she couldn't get into college or trade school with the special diploma.
Now she has teamed up with Attorney Javier Bailey, who will file a federal lawsuit Monday to dismantle Gateway.
"They get special diplomas and their diplomas are misleading. It's not a diploma at all. What it is a certificate to push you on out of the system," says Bailey.
On the state level, Representative G.A. Hardaway and others are pushing a bill to give students a chance to take the test again and get regular diplomas.
"We got to make it possible for students to pursue higher education by making sure we prepare them and that we have documentation that doesn't interfere with the ability to move on," says Hardaway.
Evelyn Horne agrees. Her 20 year old grandson has run into similar problems with his special diploma.
"I believe a child who has gone through twelve years of school, has passed all of the courses and has been given a special diploma because he didn't pass a Gateway, something that I as a degreed nurse cannot pass, I think it's very unfair," says Horne.
It's unfairness they hope can be turned around in a court of law.
Unconstitutional Gateway Exam driving some to crime, drugs
By Latricia Wilson
Tri-State Defender
I have some serious concerns about the high school graduation requirement (Gateway Exam) that has been administered within the state of Tennessee.
The Gateway Exams are course-level exams for students enrolled in Algebra1, English 10 and Biology. Passing all three course-level exams before exiting the twelfth grade is a mandatory requirement for students that planned to receive a Regular Diploma in the 2004-05 school year and thereafter.
I feel that a test-for-diploma system is not fair to students that are taught year after year by teachers unqualified to teach in core subjects such as English, science and math. The No Child Left Behind Law requires that teachers be qualified to teach these core subjects. Because many teachers are not qualified to the extent they should be, many students have not been properly prepared to pass these exams equally throughout the state of Tennessee.
Another concern that I have is that many school systems suffer from being poorly under-funded. Under-funded schools are unable to obtain high-stake curriculum for high-stake exams. Economic inequalities within the school systems has played a huge role in students' pass and fail rates of the Gateway Exam.
Thousands of students were unsuccessful at passing the Gateway Exam, and consequently were unable to participate in their graduation ceremony. Being issued Special Diplomas and Certificates of Attendance penalized these students. That's why I am utterly disgusted and outraged to know that students were being excluded from participating in the graduation ceremony. They were excluded after persevering through thirteen years of school, and passing all other required courses.
Many former students of the Memphis City Schools system in particular turned to drugs, crime and were subjected to longer periods of unemployment. These former students had taken the Gateway exams over a three-year period. Numerous students attended schools that were classified as failing schools according to the No Child Left Behind data.
In Memphis at least half of the high schools have been on the failing list for having low graduation rates and poor test scores six years in a row. I cannot begin to understand how it is that these students have been scapegoated, penalized and tossed aside for the school system's failures.
I have reviewed the NCLB law several times. I have been unable to locate any such wording that states, "For the student to be penalized when the system has failed that student." But somehow the state board officials often say that they are just trying to comply with the No Child Left Behind Law by taking diplomas away from students for failing a test. This state so-called compliance with the No Child Left Behind Law has left thousands of youth behind. I wonder when will the state board of education take responsibility for their actions and stop punishing students for its failures.
Therefore, the state board of education test-for-diploma system should be deemed unconstitutional. In many ways due to the state noncompliance of federal laws, the requirement deprives students of life, liberty and property. The state board of education has overlooked federal laws to uphold a standard. The fourteenth amendment states, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." The state board of education should be held accountable for enforcing a law that has systematically denied many students the right to their ownership of a regular high school diploma.
Any child that passes all required subjects k-12 has a right to (his or her) high school diploma. That student has a right to participate in this society. If a child was taught by unqualified teachers, and learned reading and math skills through a second-class curriculum, whose fault is it when they fail to pass the Gateway Exam?
How dare the policymakers play god by depriving these children from higher education by any means when they have failed to meet the standards they have mandated themselves.
Latricia Wilson is a former Memphis City Schools student who received a specialized diploma after falling short of Gateway Exam math standards. A lawsuit has been filed in federal court on her behalf.
— Latricia Wilson
Tri-State Defender
2007-08-24
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
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