The Board of Education approved the proposal for locally awarded verified credits for the classes of 2004, 05 and 06 and recently extended it indefinitely.

A Response to the Board of Education's Recent Decision on Locally Awarded Verified Credits

"We're trying to be fair," says Mark Christie (former President of the Board of Education), talking about the Board of Education's decision to allow a limited local appeal process to award verified credits to kids who haven't yet passed enough tests to graduate. Wait, let me stop laughing.

If it had really been about fairness, the Board would have admitted that tests are too imprecise to balance graduation decisions on them. If fairness had really been the goal, the state would have admitted that all test scores have a standard error of measurement, meaning that each score could really be anywhere from a specific number of points below to above the reported score. The SOL tests' Standard Error of Measure runs between 15 and 25 points. If being fair to kids had been what this decision was all about, the Board would have let local committees take the student's entire year's worth of work into consideration, rather than set up a "fail-at-least-twice-and-then-we'll-look-at-your-schoolwork-classroom-grades-and-teacher-recommendations." If fairness had been the criteria, they would not have removed Algebra 1, Algebra 2 and Geometry from the alternative path.

If fairness was what the state Board of Education was about, they would have listened to teachers and to experts in educational testing and measurement about how test results should be part of a balanced picture of student achievement, not the whole picture, in making major education decisions. If it really had been about being fair, the Board would have allowed an alternative path to graduation right from the start and not just grudgingly, when ordered to do so by state law. Oh, if only it were about being fair….

It's not about being fair to kids. It's about saving the SOL cheerleaders' backsides. It's about the graduation trainwreck scheduled for 2004. It's about being able to say "the SOLs are working" by holding up skewed statewide data and ignoring data at the individual child level. In this failing policy of overemphasis and misuse of test results, the last thing the state is about is fairness to our kids.

The Board has changed the rules of the SOL numbers game annually to make the numbers say what they want them to say. They average a school's pass rates across grade levels, leave out kids who don't help the average, and add bonus points for kids required to go to remediation who pass the tests on the second try. These tricks inflate accreditation ratings and hide the real numbers. The real numbers of actual kids being left behind. This time, the state is changing the rules by adding this limited appeals process because it is finally starting to hear the school folks' estimates of the 2004 non-graduation rate. And that rate is huge. Even in schools that the state has labeled accredited.

The state knows the public won't stand for denying graduation for missing one too many multiple- choice questions. That's why the Board had to create this new formula.

Am I glad that kids won't miss graduation for scoring 399 instead of 400 on an SOL test? Sure. Anything that softens the blow to our children is welcome. But don't tell me it's about fairness to our kids. The small group eligible for appeal just happened to get lucky because softening the SOL hammer also happens to coincide with the interests of the state in hiding some of the evidence of a failing policy.

"Is the test measuring accurately the student's mastery of the standards of learning in that class?" asks one superintendent. If you want to be fair, start by honestly answering that question.

In the era of Enron, Worldcom, and Arthur Anderson, enter the Board of Education of Virginia. They know how to make the books say what they want them to say.