This past week, The Herald published “Testing Success?,” a four-part series examining the new role of the New England Common Assessment Program in public high school graduation requirements. For the first time, seniors are required to either demonstrate “partial proficiency” or improve their scores between their junior and senior years in order to graduate. The NECAP was not designed as a graduation requirement, and Rhode Island is the only state using the exam this way. This could radically affect Rhode Island’s current seniors, as over 40 percent of them failed either the reading or math portion of the exam and are in danger of not graduating. Regardless of one’s views on the rapid implementation of standardized testing and its effect on public education, it is wholly absurd that a recent policy shift should put so many of the state’s students at risk of not receiving their diplomas. If the Rhode Island Department of Education insists on mandating a certain proficiency level, it must give school districts more time to adapt to the new requirements.
The implementation of this policy has been marked by confusion and delays. When initially conceived in 2008, the graduation requirement was scheduled to take effect for the class of 2012. But when it was demonstrated that over 80 percent of Rhode Island students tested below “proficient” in math, the education department delayed the requirement’s implementation until 2014 and lowered the benchmark to “partial proficiency” or demonstrated improvement. In addition, students are allowed to appeal their decisions with scores from national standardized exams such as the SAT or the ACT — but it seems unfair to expect that students who failed to meet a certain benchmark on an exam for which they were specifically prepared would be able to perform better on national exams.
The inability of such a large proportion of the state’s students to demonstrate proficiency should provoke a much more comprehensive response than simply continued testing. It may be that the NECAP is too difficult or simply not suited for its current purpose — as Providence Mayor Angel Taveras noted, “The test was not designed to say whether students achieved mastery of a body of knowledge.” The mere implementation of stricter standards does not help students meet them. If the NECAP is succeeding in identifying student deficiencies, then increased testing will only continue to punish the underprepared, rather than help them.
Without high school diplomas, students may be precluded from career options and further educational opportunities. The state may need to implement greater support for reading and math proficiency, and if so, it should not implement successful testing as a graduation requirement until students have cycled through bolstered curricula. Rhode Island cannot allow over 40 percent of its seniors fail to graduate. The requirement must be delayed while this policy is further debated and schools are given more time to acclimate. In the greater policy debate about the role of standardized testing in education, it is grossly unfair for students to be used as pawns.
Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: its editor, Rachel Occhiogrosso, and its members, Daniel Jeon, Hannah Loewentheil and Thomas Nath. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.
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