Proficiency tests signal need for action by state board

Despite the improvement on Ohio's Ninth-Grade Proficiency Tests around the state, the continuing difficulty many students are experiencing with math and science cannot be ignored. While all the indications suggest the need for better trained math and science teachers who can provide the best possible instruction, the State Board of Education would make a mockery out of science teaching in Ohio by pretending that "Intelligent Design" is true science and can be taught in the state's science classrooms as part of the state's academic standards.
Elevating these quasi-religious beliefs to the same level as the research of thousands of scientists working over hundreds of years makes as much sense as teaching flat-earth theory in geography, or eschewing computers in a technology program.
The evolutionary theory of origins, like the germ theory of disease, or the plate-tectonic theory of motion on Earth's surface, is not some sort of wild guess plucked out of thin air. Scientific theories are developed to explain what scientists have discovered after well substantiated research.
But if those state board members who are planning to water down the science standards actually understood what science was, they might understand that what they are doing will only make science education worse in Ohio.
To be sure, Ohio's middle- and high school pupils are doing better on the state-mandated exams. Ninety-eight percent of the class of 2002 has passed all five parts of the Ninth-Grade Proficiency Tests required for high school graduation.
And of the 5,903 eighth-graders in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties, 3,053, or 52 percent, passed all five sections -- above the state's 48 percent passing rate. These eighth graders -- the class of 2006 -- will be the last class required to pass the Ninth-Grade Proficiency Tests to earn an Ohio high school diploma. The ninth-grade tests will be replaced by the new 10th-grade Ohio Graduation Test which are designed to provide a measure of students' high school achievement of the new Ohio academic content standards.
Substandards
But what does it say about the current educational standards if half of Ohio's eighth-graders have already gained the knowledge the state says they need to graduate from high school? After all, these youngsters were only halfway into eighth grade when they took the ninth-grade exams.
And worse, if the state board of education doesn't want to accept the recommendations of its own panel of experts in determining what the new science standards should be, we can't expect the 10th-grade standards to be any more rigorous than the current standards.
On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige called on states to radically transform their teacher certification systems by raising standards and lowering barriers that keep many highly qualified candidates from pursuing teaching careers. Paige said, & quot;We now have concrete evidence that smart teachers with solid content knowledge have the greatest effect on student achievement. & quot;
But we must ask, why should the nation's top young scientific minds want to teach in a state that has so little regard for what constitutes scientific knowledge and understanding? The state board of education should hear what Paige is telling them.