Minnesota juniors dodge math-test bullet

Minnesota high school juniors took state math tests this spring thinking they'd be the first students required to meet tough new graduation standards.

The test results released Friday left many relieved the new rules were shelved.

More than 40 percent of 11th-graders who took the math exam fell short of a more rigorous graduation requirement that the state had planned to impose starting with the Class of 2010, according to statewide test results released Friday by the Minnesota Department of Education.

But the Legislature decided in May that, at least for now, students no longer have to pass the 11th-grade math graduation test. Many educators think it's too hard, and feared it would have caused a dramatic drop in graduation rates next year.

"It would have been a huge, huge percentage of kids that schools would have had no meaningful prospect of catching up in a year," said Kent Pekel, executive director of the University of Minnesota's College Readiness Consortium, who is co-chairing a state study group that is looking for a long-term fix to the state's high-school testing system.

Students still must meet graduation requirements in reading and writing, and they performed much better as a group in those subjects. On the reading test, which students take in 10th grade, 78 percent passed, a 3-point increase from last year. Students held steady on the writing test, with 89 percent of ninth-graders passing.

But out of more than 62,000 students who took the math test, 57 percent met graduation requirements. That rate was much lower for poor and minority students. Just 21 percent of black and 31 percent of Hispanic students passed, compared to 63 percent of white students. Among students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunches -- an indicator of poverty -- 34 percent passed.

International test results released in December show that, compared to other countries, Minnesota's students have made considerable progress in math in the past 12 years. The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) shows that Minnesota's students are outperformed by only four of 36 countries in fourth-grade math, and five of 49 countries in eighth-grade math.

The graduation test questions are embedded in the state's broader math exam, which is used to measure how well schools are educating students. This spring, 42 percent of 11th graders were proficient on that test, up 8 percentage points from last year.

The spike came as no surprise to testing experts, who say students typically do much better on tests if they know there are consequences for failing. For example, when Minnesota 10th graders had to meet a tougher graduation requirement in reading for the first time last year, their proficiency rate on the state reading test went up 9 percentage points from the previous year.

To state Education Commissioner Alice Seagren, the jump is a clear sign that more students can and will perform well if educators raise the bar. Before graduation questions were injected into the broader state exam, students would "blow off" the test, she said.

Seagren said she's worried that the math scores could drop next year once students figure out they don't have to do well to graduate, adding that she had been hoping for a more permanent solution than the changes to the math graduation requirement that the Legislature passed and Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed this spring.

Meanwhile, the study group cochaired by the U's Pekel is searching for alternatives for Minnesota's tests, including giving "end-of-course" exams at the end of separate classes, instead of comprehensive math or reading tests for which students need to remember years' worth of classes. Another option could be using a college-entrance exam such as the ACT as a graduation benchmark, he said.

Minnesota needs to resolve its testing "wars," Pekel said, so the state can move on to more important questions, such as how it can do a better job actually teaching students. As he put it, "Weighing the cow doesn't fatten it."