Another school year has gone by.

Wednesday, June 14, 2000

Another school year has gone by. Another batch of proficiency test results have been released by the state.

Now, we have to figure out what the test results mean. And that is no easy task.

Much has been made of the fact that the percentage of students passing the ninth-grade proficiency test in 1999 was lower than 1998.

In particular, only 46 percent of this year’s eighth-graders who took the test passed all five segments. That’s a 3-percent drop from the year before.

You simply cannot compare one group of children to another group of children. They are different as individuals and different in their group characteristics, such as how many come from low-income families or single-parent home or households with televisions and Nintendo.

That doesn’t mean testing is invalid. And it doesn’t mean that students shouldn’t be expected to have certain, basic knowledge by the time they are ready to leave high school.

– THE MARION STAR, June 7