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9486 in the collection
Governor Bush Happy that 40,000 Third Graders to Be Retained, Calling on God
``You're starting behind to begin with and just playing catch-up," he said." Does anybody ever ask 'Behind what?' Kids are where they are when they enter school. Why not emphasize their curiosity and their sense of wonder--instead of saying they're "behind" because they haven't yet learned to recite the alphabet?" Why not find out what they're "ahead" in? We do great harm to children when we continue to accept the government's definition of success and failure.
Read this article carefully. There's a lot of ugliness revealed in the quotes of various people. Governor Bush comes pretty close to saying in retaining kids, he's doing God's work.
7,200 Miami-Dade Third graders May Not Advance
Matthew I. Pinzur
More than a quarter of Miami-Dade County's third-graders -- about 7,200 students -- will likely be held back after performing poorly on the state's standardized reading test, according to data released Monday.
Another 5,000 high-school seniors will not receive diplomas when their classes graduate in a few weeks after failing as many as seven attempts at the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test's reading and math exams.
Both groups are among the first students to feel the teeth of new state regulations that ban ''social promotion'' by linking FCAT scores to promotion and graduation. By comparison, only a few hundred third-graders were held back last year.
''We should not despair,'' said Mercedes Toural, chief education officer of the Miami-Dade school system. ``We know that people have worked hard, but we need to work harder and smarter.
Scores were better than ever in Miami-Dade, but the county still lingered at the bottom of statewide achievement. Only a handful of rural counties had worse failure rates and lower median reading scores.
Most of Miami-Dade's lowest-performing third-graders were from inner-city schools, many of whose students live in poverty -- a factor often cited in research about underachievement. The failure rate was at least 50 percent at 29 of the county's 220 elementaries, and at five of those -- Liberty City, Naranja, West Homestead, Morningside and Holmes -- at least two-thirds of the class failed.
''I'm almost speechless,'' said O'Neal McGrew, principal of Naranja, where 69 percent of the 119 third-graders failed the test. ``I expected our boys and girls to do better.''
He said high mobility and poor preparation were the school's greatest challenges -- many students enroll in kindergarten without the ability to name colors or recognize letters.
``You're starting behind to begin with and just playing catch-up, he said.
The highest failure rate in the county was at Liberty City Elementary, where 71 percent of third-graders scored at the lowest of five achievement levels. All students at Level 1 reading face retention.
Jacqlyn Taylor, whose daughter attends the school, said students in her native Jamaica are pushed harder at an early age than in Miami. But she said Liberty City has a problem with overcrowded classrooms and apathetic parents.
On the upside, six elementaries had passing rates above 90 percent: Palmetto, Sunset, Pinecrest, Frank C. Martin, North Dade Center for Modern Language and Spiral Tech Charter.
Positive trends emerged across Florida.
Statewide, the number of students scoring at Level 1 on the reading test fell to 23 percent from last year's 27. The number scoring at the three highest levels increased from 60 to 63 percent. Level 1 math scores dropped from 21 to 19 percent, and high scorers increased from 59 to 63 percent.
BUSH HAPPY
''My expectation, particularly in the lower grades, is we will continue to see improvement in the kinds of ways that should make all teachers, principals, parents and policy-makers very excited as we go forward,'' said Gov. Jeb Bush.
He acknowledged that as many as 40,000 third-graders statewide will be retained.
''I believe it is absolutely appropriate to do so for children that God has given the ability to gain this power and they haven't learned it,'' Bush said. ``It's OK to hold them back so that they can acquire these skills and they will soar.''
The overall trend was positive in Miami-Dade, as well: The third-grade median reading score, based on a 500-point scale, rose to 284, up from 279 in 2002 and 270 in 2001.
School districts received boxes of student results on Monday afternoon, but individual schools will not receive that information until late today or Wednesday, said Gisela Feild, director of the district's data analysis office.
Parents should be notified of their child's scores by the end of this week or early next week.
Scores were only released for third- and 12th-graders because those groups are targets of new state regulations. The bulk of the FCAT results, for fourth through 10th grades, are scheduled for release later this month, to be followed by state accountability grades for each school.
The Miami-Dade district's estimate of 7,200 retentions already excluded more than 1,300 students who failed the reading FCAT but qualified for exemptions under the new rules, Toural said. Those are primarily non-English speakers with fewer than two years of ESOL classes and some special-education students.
Third-grade results were better in Broward, which mirrored the statewide average with 23 percent in Level 1. It had as many as 2,000 high-school seniors who have not passed the exam, but those are preliminary results that include an unknown number of ESOL and special-education students who can receive a diploma anyway.
There are also a few loopholes for mainstream third-graders. State officials already know of nearly 2,000 third-graders, including more than 250 in Miami-Dade, who qualified for fourth grade by scoring well on an alternate exam, such as the Stanford Achievement Test.
PORTFOLIO EXEMPTION
Neither local nor state officials have any sense of how many students will be able to benefit from a new portfolio exemption, in which a teacher and principal can recommend a student for promotion if other class work demonstrates mastery of third-grade reading skills. The district superintendent and Department of Education have final say.
``That seems to be where everyone wants to go, like a big gate will open wide with so many loopholes you can drive a Mack truck through it, said Education Commissioner Jim Horne. ``The parameters are very tightly drawn, and I don't think districts plan on using it as a way to sweep a bunch of children through.
Toural, Miami-Dade's chief education officer, said schools will find different methods to teach third-graders who were held back, believing they will make little headway by simply repeating the same curriculum.
Individual principals, working with district officials, will determine whether to mix new third-graders with those repeating.
``We learned a long time ago that the cookie-cutter approach doesn't work with our schools, Toural said.
Since schools with high retention rates will have fewer fourth-graders next school year, Toural said some fourth-grade teachers will take over third-grade classes.
The results for 12th-graders -- who took the exam only if they still needed to pass the reading or math tests -- largely met the district's expectations. It was the last chance for those 5,000 students to pass and still participate in graduation with their classmates.
The results released Monday showed that more than 13,000 students statewide failed to pass the test, but Horne said that number could include thousands who have also failed to meet the credit or grade-point-average graduation requirements. Furthermore, it indicates only a small increase over the 10,000 students denied diplomas last year under the easier High School Competency Test, Horne said.
Each of those students will receive a letter from Horne next week with information about programs to pass the FCAT this summer or enrollment in fast-track classes for a General Equivalency Diploma.
``Students are going to get more attention than this kind of student has ever had before, said David Armstrong, state chancellor for higher education.
This kind of student?
POLITICAL BATTLE
Their fate was a divisive political fight during the just-ended legislative session in Tallahassee, where different groups of lawmakers tried to carve out exceptions. Almost none of those proposals passed, prompting outrage from state Sen. Frederica Wilson.
''We know they will be relegated to low-paying jobs and never be able to see the light of day, because they can't even become a custodian in a public school without a diploma,'' said Wilson, D-Miami. ``Twenty years from now we will all regret that we went lockstep with this governor in implementing something so punitive in the lives of the children of Florida.
She also oversees the district's 5000 Role Models program, which mentors black boys through school. At the group's annual scholarship ceremony Monday, she spoke about students with college scholarships or military enlistments whose plans will be derailed because they did not pass the FCAT.
''When I took it the last time in March, I prayed coming in, and I prayed coming out,'' said Brandan Humphrey, a senior at Norland Senior High.
He earned a $1,000 scholarship to study business administration at DeVry University in Miramar, but those plans depend on whether he passed the FCAT reading exam in March. After taking the test three times, he will learn his latest results this week.
''You work for 12 years so that one test determines if you graduate,'' Humphrey said. ``I've worked too hard for that.''
— Matthew I. Pinzur
7,200 Miami-Dade third graders may not advance
Miami Herald
May 6, 2003
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/5793903.htm
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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