19 percent of seniors fail proficiency test

Monday, June 7, 2004 | 10:01 a.m.

About one of every five Clark County high school seniors won't receive a diploma at this year's graduation ceremonies because of a failing score on the statewide math proficiency test.

Of the 12,442 seniors in the Clark County School District who have otherwise completed all of the requirements for graduation, 19 percent have yet to pass the math section of the test.

Seniors who have earned the minimum 22.5 academic credits but do not pass all sections of the exam may participate in commencement activities but receive "Certificates of Attendance" instead of diplomas.

Critics have long argued that the math test does not fairly reflect what students are being taught.

Students are given multiple opportunities to pass each section of the proficiency exam, beginning in their sophomore year. Each May the tests are offered to seniors as a last-chance opportunity before graduation. Of the students who took the math test in May, 29.9 percent passed. The pass rate on the reading section was 32.1 percent and was 48.9 percent for the writing section.

Last May, with more than 25 percent of Clark County's senior class still failing to earn passing scores on the math section, lawmakers lowered the passing score from 304 to 290. Following the legislative intervention, the percentage of seniors who still needed to pass the math section was cut by more than half, to 12.2 percent.

The passing score will be raised to 296 for the class of 2005. The passing score will continue increasing by several points each year until it is restored to 304 in 2007. In the meantime, the Legislature ordered an interim study to ensure the state's math curriculum and the proficiency test contents are in alignment.

The increase in the percentage of students who did not pass the math test this year was caused in part to the minimum required score being raised from 290 to 293, said Sue Daellenbach, testing director for the district.

"It doesn't sound like a big change but three points can make a huge difference," Daellenbach said. "This is a difficult test -- the fact that the Legislature saw fit to lower the passing score in the first place is indicative of that."

For the past few years the district has focused heavily on mathematics, boosting the percentage of students who take algebra by eighth grade from 15 percent to over 70 percent. This is also the first year that algebra -- which accounts for 20 percent of the proficiency test questions -- is a requirement for high school graduation.

"I'm anxious for these middle schoolers to get into high school," said Daellenbach, who was principal at Foothill High School and briefly served as an assistant regional superintendent before taking over as testing director last month. "That's where we're going to see our initiatives really paying off."

Math wasn't the only stumbling block for the class of 2004. The percentage of Clark County seniors who did not pass the reading and writing sections of the exam by June also increased.

Of this year's seniors, 7.8 percent still need to pass the reading section, up from 5.7 percent in 2003. And in the writing section, 5.5 percent of this year's students have not yet passed the test compared with 3.2 percent last year.

"Reading and writing are absolute basics," said Larry Mason, vice president of the Clark County School Board. "We need to keep pushing on math, but we can't let the other things slip down in the meantime."

A key to raising the district's overall performance on proficiency tests is expanding literacy programs for non-native English speakers in the upper grades, Mason said.

"We have terrific momentum in our elementary schools, but it starts slipping off at middle school and by high school it's almost non-existent," Mason said. "Every day we have more and more ELL (English Language Learner) students and their proficiency test scores are a big part of the total."

Statewide results for the proficiency test are expected to be released later this month.