No weeping statues. No apparitions of the Virgin Mary. But for years now, Quakertown Community School District has been performing an annual Major Miracle. Just like clockwork, and right under our noses. But this is not the kind of Biblical hosanna that we welcome.
The amazing story starts early in the educational process, when our students first take the PSSA exams, in third grade. They do very, very well. Apparently our moms and dads are sending excellent learning candidates to the elementary schools.
By the time our kids reach eighth grade, their scores are falling off. And by 11th grade, the results are disastrous. Year after year, class after class, the scores come back the same - about one-third of our juniors fail the math, and one-quarter fail the reading. But instead of acknowledging the problem, the QCSD administration whitewashes it: scores from all of the grades are averaged, and the district proudly proclaims that it has achieved "Adequate Yearly Progress", as mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act.
The test scores show a steady decline from third through 11th grade. But then the miracles apparently begin. QCSD takes the phrase "No Child Left Behind" literally. Virtually every senior graduates!!! Somehow, someway, in that final year of high school, we seemingly manage to reverse our 11-year decline in objective test scores, and qualify everyone for a diploma. The hundreds of students who couldn't do basic math are now deemed competent! The one-quarter of the class who couldn't read are now recognized as literate! Unbelievable, unexplainable circumstances are what miracles are all about, right?
QCSD declares failure to be a form of success.
Quick - call the Vatican. Senior year in our high school is better than a trip to Lourdes .
Obviously, the kids aren't improving educationally. We are just lowering the bar, or to be more precise, eliminating it completely. The only requirement to graduate from our school system is a body temperature approximating human life. All else can be overlooked. And the kids then become someone else's problem - many set up for failure, and basically abandoned. Graduation Fraud.
To be fair, QCSD isn't the only school system in PA to hand out diplomas like Kleenex in flu season. Many of the 500 districts perform miracles of their own. Which is why the state is now - finally - taking action. Long-overdue graduation exams are coming to PA's public high schools.
The state Attorney General's office has approved a regulation creating the Keystone Exams, a series of 10 end-of-course tests in reading, math and other subjects that will first affect the class of 2015. They will replace the 11th grade PSSA's (third and eighth graders will continue to take the current tests). Students will have to demonstrate proficiency on at least six of the exams, or fulfill alternative requirements, like Advanced Placement tests, to graduate. School districts will have the option of designing and using their own graduation tests instead, but they must be at least as rigorous as the Keystone Exams.
But despite the fact that data from placement tests of incoming college freshmen, such as Penn State's FITCAP exams, shows how poorly PA students are prepared for college, most school boards, and the PA School Board Association, oppose the Keystone Exams. QCSD does too (isn't that a surprise!). Their excuses are as bad as "the dog ate my homework": Local school districts will lose control over their graduation requirements; Public education is better served when local school boards decide on graduation standards; It costs too much. But they never address the real problems: Does a diploma in Erie, Scranton, or even Palisades mean the same thing as a diploma in QCSD? And do any of the diplomas actually mean anything? Both answers are a resounding no!
QCSD director Paul Stepanoff, who has heard numerous horror stories about the results of our district's everyone-graduates policy, says that the Keystone Exams are absolutely necessary. "I know that many members of the QCSD board oppose them, but I applaud the PA legislature for doing what is right for the students, rather than be a puppet of the educational lobbyists from the teachers unions and school boards. The reality is that school districts are hiding behind 'local control'. Students showing abysmal academic performance are routinely graduated from most schools in PA, including QCSD. Rather than face the failures of the public school system, we hand everyone a diploma and be done with it. Clearly we are graduating a significant percentage of the student body that does not deserve to get a diploma, because the 'local control' allows the standards to drop so low as to graduate virtually every senior. Unfortunately, this does not serve the students, community, state, or nation."
In reality, school districts won't be losing their cherished control. PA is only setting a minimum standard for all schools with the Keystone Exams. There is nothing that prevents directors from adopting their own, higher, standards. If they want to offer a greater challenge to their students, right on. We will be interested to see if QCSD does. But at least there will be a required, recognized standard for graduation across the state.
And Stepanoff believes that we should take the concept even farther, as many other countries have done: "We have to get serious about the rigors of student achievement. Anyone who fails the PSSA test in any grade, should not matriculate to the next grade. I believe such a policy, or law, would actually improve our test scores immediately. Currently, students have no incentive to do well in the PSSA tests. Whoever came up with the idea obviously does not understand human nature. A good analogy would be to set speed limits on highways with NO punishments for breaking those limits. Yes, the limit is 55, but if you go 95 - not to worry - no one will stop or fine you. If we actually make the PSSA's mean something to the students, such as they don't advance unless they pass, the students will take the tests much more seriously."
And despite the fact that QCSD has adamantly opposed graduation exams, they will likely be a Godsend here. But this time, a real Godsend, not a fake miracle. See, every year the administration has been able to cover up the 11th grade failures by using the PSSA averaging I mentioned earlier. But under No Child Left Behind, by 2014 all students are required to make AYP. No more averaging. And, barring a genuine miracle, we aren't even going to come close. No one knows what the actual penalty for this kind of failure would be, but with the federal government involved, it won't be simple, or inexpensive. Graduation exams will eliminate the problem. You achieve, you graduate.
No, not everyone will succeed. No system will ever insure that. We will still have dropouts, and those who just can't earn the diploma. But that is exactly the point. A high school diploma will be earned - it will actually mean something. And we can stop kidding ourselves, and end the Graduation Fraud.