New High School Graduation Requirements Test This High School Student’s Patience
By Sanaa Kahloon
The following is the testimony given by the author to the Kentucky Education Commissioner and the Kentucky Department of Education at the only public hearing about proposed high school graduation requirements in Frankfort on November 29, 2018. Sanaa was one of 17 people who testified on the proposal and the only high school student to do so.
Good morning. My name is Sanaa Kahloon, and I am a sophomore at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School and a member of the Prichard Committee Student Voice Team. Though I am missing class to be here, I know that given the subject matter, it is important for someone like me to be at the table today.
I am here specifically to ask that in the discussion we’re currently having about minimal high school graduation standards that we include what it takes to have a more meaningful high school experience too.
I am here specifically to ask that in the discussion we’re currently having about minimal high school graduation standards that we include what it takes to have a more meaningful high school experience too.
In distilling so much of the high school experience to standardized testing and decreased rigor, I believe we are selling students — and Kentucky’s entire education enterprise — short.
Among other things, the proposal in question requires a grade proficiency exam in math and reading, ensures that students are “transition-ready” via ACT benchmark scores, and abolishes Algebra II as a requirement.
But I believe these aims are in direct conflict with each other and at odds with a more meaningful learning experience.
Let’s take these one at a time.
The proposed exit exams seem harmless enough on the surface. But do a little digging and you’ll need to ask yourself what the unintended consequences may be. What will we do, for example, if students who fail these tests are further demoralized? Are we willing in the same breath to provide them with additional supports so they can remain in school and graduate? If the students across Kentucky the Prichard Committee Student Voice Team interviewed for our book, Ready or Not and for our school climate audits are to be believed, we have got to ensure fewer barriers — and not more — to engage young people in our schools.
I am talking here of people like Tabitha, an Eastern Kentucky junior who described to us the drudgery of her learning experience. “On a normal day, I walk in, and I get handed papers and worksheets that I need to fill out,” she said. “On tests, well, if you even want to count them as tests, kids don’t even try to hide their phones. We don’t check classwork or go over it, and when we do, we don’t understand it. Why waste all the time filling out the stupid things?”
I am also talking about people like Charlie, a senior, who with his love of literature and ability in English thought he was college material only until very recently when he took another standardized test that killed his confidence. “Basically, according to my test score, I’m not ready to go to college,” he told us. “It just validated what I already knew to be true. I think as far as the brain power goes, I could do well if I really wanted to. I just don’t anymore.”
In my own school, teachers and students alike often remark that the time taken for mandated testing cuts into the time needed to actually teach what is being tested. It all leaves many of us on the front lines of our classrooms asking: Where is the room for inspiration? For experimentation? And for higher-level synthesis and analysis and demonstration of mastery that cannot be captured by yet one more standardized test?
Where is the room for inspiration? For experimentation? And for higher-level synthesis and analysis and demonstration of mastery that cannot be captured by yet one more standardized test?
True, the challenge of supporting this type of meaningful learning is compounded by recent budget cuts that are already severely impacting the student-teacher ratio and the materials necessary to make it happen. But that begs the question: Are we only measuring what is easiest to measure?
And there is more to say about other critical exams.
The ACT is the foundation of Kentucky’s college readiness criteria. While placing so much emphasis on one test to measure something as abstract as “readiness” is strange in and of itself, what truly baffles me is the proposed removal of Algebra II in conjunction with increased attention to college and career readiness. If this is the test we’re relying on to ensure students are ready for postsecondary education, what do we think we’re doing?
Though I’m guessing most adults in the room have not seen a college entrance exam in decades, most any Kentucky high schooler can tell you that the ACT does in fact test Algebra II topics. But well beyond undermining success on a standardized test, removing Algebra II would also undermine the lowest of the problem-solving based math skills. In the context of a public-school system that struggles with conceptual critical thinking, this takes away vital exposure to higher-level reasoning that is an unspoken requirement for many of the most high-paying careers.
I can say with the conviction of a high schooler who has done her homework that these well-intended proposals will not accomplish the board’s stated goals.
Instead, there should be more focus on bolstering the standard of teaching and giving our teachers the materials to do their jobs well. That prospect of course includes adequate funding as well as more respect for our teachers’ time and expertise.
In the final analysis too, there should be more consultation with students who will actually be impacted by any decisions the board makes. I submit that it’s hard to determine how a high schooler’s education journey will go when those doing the determining seem so removed from what happens day to day in our schools.
Sanaa Kahloon is a sophomore at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Lexington, Kentucky and a member of the Prichard Committee Student Voice Team.
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