Keystone exams fail Pa. students

By Andy Dinniman

Though controversial, I believe the new Pennsylvania Core Standards (Common Core) are a positive step for education. However, in the false name of raising academic standards and accountability, the Corbett administration is attempting to assess these new standards through the Keystone Graduation Exams, which will result in higher property taxes, less classroom instruction, more "teaching to the test," and the potential for a generation of students to be branded as failures.

The state Department of Education and the state Board of Education have proposed the exams to the Independent Regulatory Review Commission, which is set to vote on them on Thursday.

I encourage you to join me in opposing the exams. Here's why:

It is fundamentally wrong for three standardized tests to determine a student's high school graduation. If the Keystone exams are approved, high school students starting with the Class of 2017 will face the possibility of passing all their classes with straight A's yet failing one of the Keystones and not getting a diploma.

It is also irresponsible to implement a program of graduation exams that will result in the largest unfunded mandate in the past 50 years. The Keystone exams require school districts to provide remediation and supplementary instruction for students who do not pass. However, the state Department of Education provides no funding for remediation costs. In fact, the department claims that the exams will have no cost to school districts, even as statewide test results indicate that remediation and supplemental instruction will be required by more than one-third of students in algebra I, more than half in biology, and a fourth in literature. The exams and their required remediation could result in an unfunded mandate of more than $300 million a year. In fact, the West Chester Area School District estimates that remediation for the biology exam alone will cost local taxpayers about $250,000.

These costs will be passed on to taxpayers in the form of massive school property tax increases. Meanwhile, financially distressed districts are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. In Philadelphia, schools face class sizes of nearly 50 students, have been forced to close their libraries, and even struggle to afford textbooks and basic instructional materials. How can we spend more than $65 million to develop and implement a testing program when our poorest school districts are going bankrupt?

It doesn't make sense to expand standardized testing at a time when increasing evidence challenges the notion that it is the best way to gauge student achievement and learning. Already, anywhere from 10 to 20 days (out of a 180-day school year) of instruction time are lost to testing and test preparation. If the Keystone exams are approved, an eighth-grader taking algebra I would face taking a class test for a grade, the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment math test, and the Keystone exam.

Even after students go through two or more tests with the required remediation and an individual project-based assessment with a teacher, the new regulations allow a superintendent to exempt any student from the graduation-test requirement. So why invest instruction and testing time and taxpayer money in the exams when tens of thousands of students will be allowed to graduate anyway? This is not a program for accountability and higher standards.

It is unfair to stamp "failure" on the backs of teachers, schools, and communities that lack the fiscal resources to prepare students to pass these exams. Why should students who are set up for failure stick with the program? These exams will simply increase high school dropout rates. And how can we revitalize economically distressed communities when their schools and students are labeled substandard?

There has been no shortage of problems with the proposed Keystone exams. The fact that 58 of 61 superintendents and intermediate unit directors in the Philadelphia suburbs have signed a position paper opposing them is a clear indication that something is wrong.

Still, the Corbett administration continues to seek to quickly and quietly push them through. In fact, the Department of Education has repeatedly withheld data necessary for weighing the costs to local districts. I have filed seven right-to-know requests to obtain exam results and breakdowns by school district, as well as information regarding the potential remediation costs. (Such costs will weigh more heavily on lower-performing and financially distressed districts, as their students are more likely to require remediation.) How absurd is it that the minority chair of the Senate Education Committee has repeatedly been refused relevant information or even a fiscal analysis of the exams?

The majority of unfunded mandates imposed on our schools come from Department of Education and State Board of Education regulations, not legislation. It is time for the legislature to stand up to the department and its endless regulations that result in more unfunded mandates and higher property taxes.

The Keystone Graduation Exams don't cut it. They fail students, they fail teachers, they fail schools, and they fail local taxpayers. Let's stop them before they fail Pennsylvania.