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Home page > Education > Oregon: Students No Longer Need to Learn English or Math

Oregon: Students No Longer Need to Learn English or Math

Sunday 22 June 2008, by admin


Starting next year the value of an Oregon High School diploma is zero.

Students will be given a choice of taking a national or State exit exam. Or they can put together a "portfolio" showing what they learned. Of course if they learned very little, can not use the English language or can’t add, that will no longer matter. If they are unable to tell which century the US Civil War was fought, no big deal.

If they confuse the the First Ten Amendments to the Constitution with the Ten Commandants, no big deal.

A few pictures, telling a story and "caring" about the earth, and you will get a diploma in Oregon. This is the State that allows assisted suicide—looks like the state is assisting in the education suicide of it students.

What do you think. Should an objective test be given to students or a subjective "portfolio" be enough for graduation? Can you fail a portfolio? Of course not.

Pass this along, you can be sure O’Connell and the unions will be promoting portfolio in California.

Oregon gives teens options on exit exams

By Julia Silverman, Associated Press, 6/21/08

PORTLAND, Ore. - When Oregon education officials set out to devise a graduation testing requirement for high school students, they looked to other states for inspiration - on what not to do.

In neighboring California, dropout rates soared the first year the state required high schoolers to pass a test to get their diploma. And in Washington state, lawmakers simply canceled plans to require exiting students to pass a single, comprehensive math test, after fears surfaced that thousands wouldn’t measure up.

"We didn’t think any one test should determine whether someone gets a diploma," said Duncan Wyse, vice-chairman of the Oregon Board of Education.

So board members chose a different route. This past week, they approved a plan that lets students pick from three options: a national test, state assessments or a local version, such as a student portfolio, to show colleges and employers they have mastered reading, writing, applied math and speaking skills. Passage on any one of the three, along with fulfilling course requirements, would guarantee a diploma.

The plan makes Oregon one of several states moving past the "one-size-fits-all" high-stakes testing that became commonplace in many U.S. high schools in the 1990s. In Pennsylvania, the Board of Education is considering a three-pronged approach similar to Oregon’s plan, while in Maryland, students who can’t pass the state tests could be allowed to do a senior project instead.

But some say such choices allow some students - and states - to take the easy way out.

Daria Hall, assistant director for K-12 policy at Education Trust, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that advocates for poor and minority children, said the exit exams test skills students learned in ninth and tenth grades.

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