Local educators say a little time may do the proposal to create statewide mandatory graduation exams some good.
State lawmakers have put the exams on hold for a year. They've also given state school districts a choice about whether or not they want to give the controversial exams in the 2009-10 school year.
Penn Manor High School Principal Jan Mindish said, "I'm glad we are not taking them this year."
"I think we need to rethink this whole process more," Conestoga Valley Superintendent Gerald Huesken said.
Lampeter-Strasburg Superintendent Robert Frick favors the exams, but not giving them along with the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment test.
"I think they have a chance" to be adopted, he said. He added that "they make more sense to me" than the PSSA.
Columbia School District Superintendent Barry Clippinger said he's not sure how he feels about them.
"I'd like to see them first," he said. Like Frick, however, he does believe they might make more sense than PSSA.
Gov. Ed Rendell was expected to sign the Public School Code bill today that would create the rules for the graduation exams.
He also was expected to sign the budget that would raise yearly spending on state tests by more than 70 percent to $54 million. Some of that money will go toward developing the tests, state Department of Education Spokeswoman Sheila Ballen told The Associated Press Monday.
"They are not over," said Joan Benso, president and chief executive officer of Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, a nonprofit, Harrisburg-based child advocacy group that supports the tests.
Until next year, the review process that would have resulted in the tests becoming a mandatory requirement has stalled, she said.
But what the state has done is provide money to develop a model K-12 statewide curriculum, early diagnostic tests aimed at reaching kids before they get to high school and to start creating the graduation exams, Benso said.
Some of the exams could be ready for school districts to try on a voluntary basis by the 2009-10 school year.
The reason, supporters said, for them is that too many students are leaving high school unprepared and having to take remedial courses in college.
"We are still seeking a statewide solution to a statewide problem," she said. "Letting everyone take a breath and look more closely at the problem and determine ways to resolve it is a good thing to do."
Schools would give one of 10 exams at the end of such classes as Algebra II or English.
Students would have to pass six of the exams covering English, math, science and social studies (starting with the class of 2014), or pass the PSSA test to graduate high school. Schools could give them in place of final exams.
Penn Manor High School students already got a taste of what a state final exam could look like.
Last school year, 400 students took a state Algebra II test, as part of the requirements of a state grant program.
Mindish said the state test did not match what her students were learning in the classroom.
She said until the state creates a statewide curriculum for them, the thought of another test will continue to frustrate many educators.
Huesken said he could see some students meeting the requirements for the exams but then lose focus for the PSSA.
"What kind of motivation would they have to do well on the PSSA?" Huesken said.
The federal No Child Left Behind Act holds schools accountable by how well students score on the PSSA.
The thought of the graduation competency assessments also has frustrated many school boards around the state. Nearly all 16 public school boards in Lancaster County passed resolutions to oppose them.
Board members said they felt they would amount to another unfunded mandate.
Frick said he wasn't surprised about all of the opposition to the graduation exams.
"Schools are the slowest organization possible to accept change," he said. "It's like a rhinoceros running down the road and has to turn 90 degrees left. First, you have to stop it."
Staff writer Robyn Meadows can be reached at rmeadows@LNPnews.com or 481-6025.
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