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Parents Criticize 3-Diploma System
Ohanian Comment: Yes, a 3-tiered diploma system is ugly. Even ugly is a test-dependent one diploma system where students who would have received a basic or standard diploma get none.
A parents lobbying group asked a House committee Wednesday to dismantle the state's three-tiered high school diploma system.
Representatives of Advocates for Children's Education said the current system, set up as part of a student accountability law passed in 2000, is unfair because it pins the type of diploma a public school student receives on one test. That cannot be an accurate measure of a student's progress, they said during a meeting of the House Education Committee in Dover.
"We think students should get one diploma," said Yvonne Johnson of Wilmington, the group's co-chairwoman. "We have to get this stopped during the next four months because once schools start getting ready to hand these out, it will be hard to turn it back."
Johnson said the diploma system may push students into private schools, which don't use the tiered system.
The group presented the committee with a letter from the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics expressing concern about the testing program.
The tiered-diploma system was one of the biggest controversies when the accountability bill was passed. Education Secretary Valerie Woodruff said the system was introduced as a compromise to eliminate language that said if students didn't pass the test, they couldn't receive a state diploma. It also was meant to provide an incentive for students to do well on the exam. Woodruff, who wasn't at Wednesday's hearing, said there's a risk those old arguments could re-emerge if efforts to change the diploma system are pushed.
"There were people in the business community who were not happy that we changed the system," she said. "People need to consider the history as they look at changing the system."
While he made no promises, Rep. Bruce C. Reynolds, R-Country Woods, said his House Education Committee will take a hard look at the issue.
"This is a topic of concern to a lot of people," said Reynolds, who taught and coached at William Penn High School before taking a job in the Colonial School District administrative office. "This was a good presentation, but there are people with other opinions and they will have a chance to weigh in on this."
Under current law, students can receive one of three diplomas based on the results of their 10th-grade state tests.
Students can receive a distinguished, standard or basic diploma based on their performance.
Johnson and the group's other co-chairwoman, Rhonda Shulman of Wilmington, told the committee that the test scores and diplomas might hurt a student's college or job choices.
Students who don't score well on the test can opt to be retested and Schulman said parents are hiring tutors to get children who don't score well on the test to pick up their scores.
Max Castorani, a senior at Alexis I. du Pont High School, told the committee he scored 1520 on his SAT test, is a National Merit Scholar and a candidate for the presidential scholars program, based on his test scores. But he told the committee that based on his state test he will receive a standard diploma.
He said the time schools use to get students ready for the state tests takes time away from other class work.
"The more teachers are forced to teach to the test," he said, "the more it takes away from their ability to teach other things we need to learn."
Castorani's story moved Rep. John J. Viola, D-Forest Knoll, to renew his criticism of the program.
"If someone scores 1520 ... and they only get a standard diploma in Delaware, there has to be something wrong with this system," Viola sad.
— Patrick Jackson
Parents Criticize 3-Diploma System
The News Journal
2004-01-22
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2004/01/22parentscriticiz.html
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