High school seniors face toughest test

It's the moment of truth for at least 1,835 Clark County high school seniors who are one test away from graduating.

Tuesday is the last day seniors can take the state's exit examination to earn their caps and gowns for graduation ceremonies two weeks away.

"I'm scared," said Clark High School senior Melissa Mason. "My gut just twists when I go in there. I feel like I am wasting my time."

At least 1,294 county students have not yet passed the math section of the Nevada Proficiency Examination, the test students must pass to earn a diploma. At least 541 have not passed the reading portion of the test. Those students failed the test when they took it most recently, in April.

Clark County has about 9,700 seniors.

"The fact of the matter is that the test is hard," said Clark County Assistant Superintendent Len Paul, who oversees high schools. "Some of the students are not prepared because they haven't taken the right classes."

Many of the students who will file into testing rooms at nearly every high school in the county Tuesday morning already have failed the test four times.

"When they get this test, they can't even concentrate," Cindy Mason, Melissa's mother, said. "It's like being an attorney and failing the bar exam five times. The pressure is horrendous."

Mason has loudly argued that state officials dropped a new, more difficult test on students without warning.

"It's frustrating," she said. "It's just ridiculous they've made this test so much harder."

The Nevada Legislature in 1997 mandated that the test should be made more difficult, beginning immediately. The state Board of Education also raised the passing scores. As a result, more students have been failing the test since April 1998, when the new test was first administered.

Parents such as Cindy Mason say students got caught in a political rush to raise standards. Her daughter took only two years of math, which meets the district's credit requirement. But the new, more difficult test includes geometry and higher-level math concepts her daughter never studied, Mason said.

Mason said state officials should have waited a few years to begin administering the new test, giving students fair warning that they should take geometry class.

Many principals agree.

"The state did not build in a transition period," Clark High School principal Wayne Tanaka said. "We want to raise the bar. We want higher standards for kids. But kids have to know where that bar is."

Tanaka said some of his students have come to him in tears.

"Most of them are not lazy kids, and some of them have had some really awful things in their lives that have happened to them," Tanaka said. "Or they are coming from another country with another language."

Of the 1,561 students who took the math section of the test in April, 267 passed, roughly 17 percent. Of the 773 who took the reading section, 232 passed, roughly 30 percent.

State Board of Education member Jan Biggerstaff of Las Vegas said she is "not overly optimistic" that many students will pass the test Tuesday. Lawmakers tied the hands of the board by ordering the immediate implementation of the new test, Biggerstaff said.

"I am so sad for these kids," Biggerstaff said. "It's unbelievable the pressure we put on these students, and I hope for the best."

Clark County testing coordinator Judy Costa said that while some students are simply not prepared to take the test, others are making careless mistakes.

"We're looking at kids whose feelings of self-efficacy are so low that they don't really believe they can pass the test," Costa said.

Some of the students who failed the April test have attended after-school and Saturday tutoring sessions at area high schools.

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