Letter: Math exam is fair for students to earn diploma

Monday, Feb. 2, 2004 | 9:04 a.m.

In reading Shirlye Stewart's Letter to the Editor on Jan. 27, I found it somewhat amusing that once again, we have more complaints about the math exam. It was more of the same ranting that happened last year when our Legislature voted to lower the passing score so that 1,300 students who had failed the exam five times could be given a diploma.

There isn't anything on the math exam that high school students must take to graduate that they shouldn't be able to pass if they want to earn a diploma and not have one handed to them.

Ms. Stewart also uses the catch-all phrase "setting our kids up for failure." But Ms. Stewart fails to understand that the real world is nothing like high school. In the real world, you have to perform to receive promotions. In the real world, people compete with one another.

In reference to her comment about how many legislators could pass this exam, I know Assemblyman Tom Collins, D-North Las Vegas, three or four years ago, took this very examination in a noise-filled committee meeting (the subject matter of the meeting was the lowering of the passing score for the math proficiency exam) and he wound up passing it with ease. He stated that he didn't have any formal mathematics since graduating from high school -- and I believe he graduated in the late 1960s.

We keep hearing about "minimum standards" as well. The concept of minimum standards is just that. If a student fails to meet that standard, should we hand him a diploma? Or should we insist that he meet the standard?

BILL PARKER