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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2008 > May > 25
Sunday, May 25, 2008
What makes a real high school graduate?
(Students await their moment on stage at Troy High School’s graduation Saturday)
Graduation — a student wearing a gown and a funny square hat marching across a stage — is not mentioned in Ohio law.
Strange as it seems, since most of us have been through one, graduation is really nothing more than an informal ritual. It’s a cultural celebration that has grown up around the conferring of diplomas.
It is the diploma itself that is a matter of officialdom. Ohio law lays out the requirements to receive a high school diploma in this state. Meet the requirements and you MUST get a diploma from your school. A school that refused to award a diploma to a qualified student would be asking for a lawsuit.
And it works both ways. If you fail to meet the state’s requirements, it would violate the law for your school to give you a diploma anyway.
For this reason, I think just about everyone expects an injunction filed in court last week by Thurgood Marshall High School parent Donald Domineck probably will be denied early this week by Judge Frances McGee. In a court hearing Friday, Domineck had several arguments for why his daughter and other Thurgood Marshall students who have the required credits should be allowed in the graduation ceremony even though they cannot receive a diploma because they have not passed the Ohio Graduation Test.
The problem is none of Domineck’s arguments, as best I could tell, had a legal rationale.
But even if Domineck’s legal case fails, I still find this an interesting debate. And so do you, apparently, judging by more than 40 comments on my prior post on this.
Here’s what’s intriguing about the issue. First, I think both sides make compelling arguments about when a student could or should be allowed to participate in graduation. Second, Ohio lawmakers — as a GOTB reader quickly pointed out to me when this issue arose — just last year to steps took address fairness issues related to kids that simply cannot seem to pass one section of the graduation test.
And third, I have reason to believe a small segment of the students who have flunked the OGT have a very valid argument that their scores should qualify as passing scores. Hang with me until I get to that point.
But let’s start with the question, should a student who has not passed the OGT be allowed at graduation?
Dayton schools say no, and this is their rationale. School officials say the graduation ceremony is just that — a GRADUATION ceremony. Therefore, those who participate should only be those who are actually graduating. The district’s logic, essentially, says that having a student walk the stage in a cap and gown when neither the student nor the district knows for sure that the student will receive a diploma is to create a sort of fraud. That student, in the district’s view, is merely pretending to graduate.
If he or she eventually earns a diploma at the end of the summer then to some degree the fraud is mitigated. But at least some of those students will never earn the diploma. To some, the participation of students who are only pretending to graduate degrades the meaningfulness of the ceremony for those who actually have earned a diploma. As the district’s lawyer, John Concannon, told Judge McGee, the graduation ceremony is a great moment but it should mean something. Whether everyone in the district likes the OGT or not, Ohio law requires it for graduation.
OK, but now the other side.
Domineck argues that because the graduation ceremony is entirely a district-run ritual, each community can decide on its own what the event means. Domineck believes the graduation test is a meaningless exercise. There is no evidence, he argues, that a kid who earns 21 high school credits and passes is any better prepared for life than a kid who earns 21 high school credits and fails.
Domineck believes the test is arbitrary, flawed and discriminates against urban kids, who are by far the most likely group to fail it. Since Dayton is an urban distirct and has the power to permit OGT-blocked kids to participate in graduation, it should do so. In fact, Domineck thinks if every district refused to recognize the OGT when it came to graduation ceremonies it would send a message to lawmakers about the test’s unfairness.
And this is not only an urban issue. As I wrote last week, it’s suburban Kettering that is one of the few local examples of a district that actually does allow kids to participate in graduation who have not passed the OGT.
Kettering Superintendent Bob Mengerink said the district has that policy because its experience has shown that nearly all Kettering kids in that situation eventually do pass the OGT and receive a diploma and the district felt it was unfair to deny them their rite of passage if they met all other requirements.
And it seems that sentiment has even infected the legislature, Last year, a new rule created an exception to the OGT requirement for a very specific subset of kids — those who are good students, who have demonstrated a commitment to school and who have worked hard to prepare for the test but just can’t quite pass.
The new rules say a student who has not passed the OGT can graduate if he or she:
—Passed four of the five tests and missed passing the fifth test by no more than 10 scale score points
—Has had a 97 percent attendance rate each of the last four years and was not expelled
—Has a grade point average of 2.5 out of 4.0 in the subject area missed and completed the curriculum requirement in the subject area missed
—Has participated in any intervention programs offered by the school and has had a 97 percent attendance rate in the program
—Obtains letters of recommendation from each teacher in the subject area not yet passed and the high school principal
Now, this alternative route to a diploma rewards good students giving an earnest effort who, for whatever reason, can’t seem to quite pass one test. But there is another reason why this route is important for the state to have.
That reason is this — students who come very close to passing but fall short may have a statistical argument that their scores should qualify as passing.
Let me recap for you what Mark Fisher and I wrote in a series on standardized testing in 2004:
Meadowdale High School student Tynisha Edmondson was among the 2 to 3 percent of Ohio seniors who headed into May needing a passing mark on one or more proficiency tests before they can receive a diploma. Edmondson, who has earned A’s in science classes, hadn’t passed her science proficiency exam.
She is also part of another group of students: those whose chance to march with their classmates at commencement hinges on their answers to one or two proficiency test questions.
Edmondson was so close, some testing specialists said she may have a valid argument that she already has passed the exam.
She scored 198 on the proficiency test she took in March - just short of the 200 needed to pass. That’s very likely within the standard error of measurement that applies to such tests. The standard error, similar to the margin of error in a political poll, means the results could be off by an equal percentage in either direction.
(Testing expert James) Popham said Edmondson’s 198 is statistically indistinguishable from the passing score of 200.
Standard error of measurement remains an issue for standardized tests used in Ohio today. So students scoring a 398 or 396 on any portion of the OGT (400 is the passing cut off) — essentially missing the passing score by one or two questions — have an argument that their scores should qualify as passing.
Now, that’s an argument that might have gotten the state’s attention.
(Image credit: Peter Wine, DDN)
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