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By  D. Scott Hughes, Executive Director Alliance For Education

Louisiana has led the nation in educational accountability, a key benchmark in reform efforts, for the last several years.  One of the most controversial pieces of our accountability efforts is the inclusion of what is referred to “high stakes testing” in the 4^th grade, 8^th grade and 12^th grade.  Simply put, this means in Louisiana you must pass an Exit Exam to move from 4^th to 5^th, from 8^th to 9^th and to gradate from high school.  While the 4^th grade test has proven troublesome for many elementary programs, it is the 8^th grade and high stakes graduation exam that have attracted the most attention.  Data clearly shows one of the highest grades for drop-outs is the 8^th grade, and many believe the high stakes test to promote out of 8^th grade is a prime reason.  Leaving aside the issue that the test only measures the fact that many 8^th graders cannot read or perform at grade level, the inability of students to pass the test and promote does begin a cycle that clearly leads to many dropping out.

Where the 8^th grade test is clearly exposing academic issues in our systems, the 12^th grade test creates another whole set of problems for School Boards and students.  For where the 4^th grade and 8^th grade tests are primarily a measure of a student’s readiness to move on in their studies, the 12^th grade test becomes a single test to determine graduation.  Many students had done well in school, passed the needed courses and simply had a bad testing day.  The fact they were able to successfully complete the twelve years of course work shows they had a basic foundation of skills.  Those with out basic skills were largely exposed at 4^th or 8^th grade.  But failure to pass the one exit test meant they did not graduate with their class.  Parents and students ended up petitioning local school boards who were basically powerless to grant exemptions.  Twelve years of working towards a day of Pomp and Circumstance was undone and the student was left with a horrible experience on day that should have been a proud moment.  And while most caught in this exit exam net did go on to graduate in summer school on a test retake, they were unable to move immediately to college lacking a high school diploma and many more were simply left with a bad experience that marred their school experience and desire to continue learning.

This policy of high stakes 12^th grade exit exam was recently undone by the BESE Board.  And while many may immediately accuse the Board of backing off accountability, it was the right move.  We still have testing in Louisiana high schools.  In fact, the move was largely made routine with the addition on high stakes “End of Course” testing for all the major academic subjects.  This means that now a student must pass a standardize test at the conclusion of the subject material to get credit for that class.  They must now actually pass numerous “high stakes” tests to successfully complete the high school credits needed to get to graduation.  What this means in the big picture is that we have made a huge stride towards insuring classes hold the same weight, or at least similar minimum standards, across the entire state.  Algebra I now means you learned, were tested and passed on the same material and level in Shreveport as a student did in Bunkie or New Orleans.  The trade out of one all-or-nothing high stakes exit exam for numerous end of course high stakes tests is a good policy move by Louisiana. 

In fact, we now have a system similar to that in most higher educations institutions.  With few exceptions, college graduates are not expected to pass one test on their four years of various subject matter studies.  They pass the unique classes one at a time.  If you fail that class you repeat that class.  A common sense solution that has been returned to Louisiana high schools to place the focus back on learning specific content and not focused on being able to pass a generalized end of high school test.  Now we need to start to work on helping those 4^th and 8^th graders read and perform at grade level.  When more children are able to actually get to high school with improved basic skills we will have even less worry about high stakes tests in high school.