Columnist Bill Hanlon: Think of students, not higher standards

BILL HANLON, is a school district administrator and a member of the State Board of Education. He can be reached on the Internet at bhanlon@ accessnv.com

TOO OFTEN when educational policy is being argued, kids get lost in the mix. They are the forgotten ones who end up paying the price for adult grandstanding. It's the children's education that is placed in jeopardy.

Last week, the big news was 40 percent of the students taking the high school proficiency exam failed. What did not get a lot of attention was that Nevada's already-high dropout rate increased again. About 7,600 students dropped out of public schools in Nevada last year.

Educational policies adopted a decade ago are to blame. More than 6,000 students failed a high school proficiency exam and another 7,600 are not enrolled in school. That's a lot of kids who need attention.

While Nevada has one of the highest dropout rates in the nation, it also has one of the lowest percentages of students going on to higher education. The state ranks 48th out of 50 states in the percentage of students who enroll in math classes beyond first-year algebra.

Knowing that, it should not come as a surprise that Nevada students don't perform well on national tests.

I predicted last year the dropout rate would increase this year. I predict next year, unless we address the credit issue, the dropout rate will go up again.

Ten years ago, the state was promised "world-class" standards. What it got was an increase in the number of credits required for high school graduation. Today, Nevada has the fifth highest credit requirement in the country. If credits equated to standards, it would stand to reason that Nevada would have the fifth highest educational standards in the country.

The number of credits does not mean a whole lot; it's the content of the courses which students are required to take that makes the difference. It's clear to me that students substituting woodworking for math credit would not fair well on a proficiency exam in mathematics. Ah, but they earned a math credit!

As parents, most of us teach our children a simple concept: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Persistence is key to success in life. Would you tell your kids, when they are learning to ride a bike, that if they fall off, they can't try again?

That has essentially been Nevada's educational policy.

There is no state in the union that is as punitive as Nevada. Nevada is unique in that it is the only state in the nation that threatens a student's graduation based on his success or failure in the first semester of his freshman year. Students that fall behind as 13- or 14-year-olds have little chance of catching up, since the state requires 22 1/2 credits to graduate. Kids, realizing they cannot make up the lost credit, often leave school.

If we want students to achieve higher academic standards, we have to challenge them to take more rigorous course work. And we also have to expect that if we raise the academic bar, not everyone will be able to make the jump on the first attempt. We have to exhort the students to try, try again. By having the credit requirement so high, students know that if they fail, their graduation is threatened. Therefore, they do not take more challenging classes.

The dropout rate in Nevada has been exacerbated by equating credits with standards. If you have real standards, then not everyone is successful, particularly on the first attempt. If you have an expectation of not everyone being able to make the jump on the first attempt, then you must have flexibility in the system to accommodate those students. Nevada does not.

It's past time to change educational policy. It's time to judge standards by the content of courses taken, not by some inflated number. With new standards coming on line, it's time to adjust the credit requirement so children can strive to reach the higher standards. If we don't, you can expect to pay higher taxes for remedial programs and summer school or expect another increase in the dropout rate next year.

archive