Group pleads for 800 kids

Kristen Peterson and Benjamin Grove

Thursday, May 27, 1999 | 9:58 a.m.

A group of parents and teachers pleaded with lawmakers on Wednesday to quickly craft a plan that will save roughly 800 high school seniors who will not graduate because they failed the Nevada high school exit exam.

Representatives of the fledgling group Parents and Educators for the Opportunity to Learn, or PEOPLE, repeated their objections to the newer, more difficult version of the test.

Parent Phyllis Cardona said her son Chris was among those who have not passed the test. The teen has enough credits to graduate and planned to leave for college in July but for now has no diploma.

Graduation ceremonies for most of the county's 28 high schools are June 2-5.

"These kids have reached all the requirements they were told they needed when they were freshman," Phyllis Cardona said. "And now they're one week away from graduation, and it's being pulled away from them. I'm very frustrated. Their futures are at stake."

Controversy has been swirling around the proficiency exam, which students by law must pass to graduate. State officials made the test more difficult so more students are failing it than ever before. About 8 percent of seniors have not passed the test, compared to 1 percent last year at this time.

Local radio show host Patricia Cunningham, a PEOPLE organizer, helped plan the meeting Wednesday, which included several lawmakers in Carson City via tele-conference.

Cunningham said she was concerned students from high-crime, high-poverty and inner-city schools would suffer most from the implementation of the more difficult test. State officials recklessly thrust the new test on students without telling students that the test would be harder and that they should take more challenging classes, Cunningham said.

"We are kidding ourselves from going from the highest dropout rates and the lowest rate of students going to college to having one of the toughest exams," Cunningham said.

Meanwhile, Clark County testing officials on Wednesday presented their latest numbers to the School Board's curriculum committee:

* 730 of 9,344 Clark County seniors have not passed the math section of the test.

* 333 did not pass the reading section.

* 262 did not pass the writing section.

Some students failed more than one section, so the total number of students who failed at least one section of the test is roughly 800, testing coordinator Judy Costa said.

School officials hope the Legislature will approve spending $300,000 for three sessions of remedial summer classes for those students who haven't passed the test. The test will be given June 17. Officials also have discussed giving the test July 2 and July 30.

Lawmakers have until Monday, when their session ends, to approve the $300,000 expenditure.

"I do have confidence that if we continue to remediate effectively, these kids can make enough gains, if not this summer, then within the next six months, to pass the test," Costa told the School Board.

"I feel for these kids," School Board member Sheila Moulton said. "Their parents are heart-broken."

Board member Lois Tarkanian added, "I know I could not pass that math test. As I read the letters to the editor and talk to people, you have to ask, 'Is this a high school test meant for students going to college only?' That's a college math test."

Assistant principal Len Paul, answered, "That's debatable."

State School Board members and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mary Peterson have said the test is reasonable.

"Although they say it's in the core curriculum, we're dealing with kids who come from outside the country and lower-income kids," Clark High School principal Wayne Tanaka said.