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Petro advocates new readiness test
By Denise Dick
columbus
Ohio Chancellor Jim Petro advocates a high-school test to assess college readiness, but some Mahoning Valley school superintendents worry about so many changes.
Petro is advocating a 10th-grade test, possibly the ACT, to replace the Ohio Graduation Test.
“We need to get a sense of college readiness,” he said.
Petro believes a test is needed to determine a student’s college readiness while there’s time to remediate it while he or she still is in high school.
“We have to make sure students are ready for college before they graduate from high school,” he said. “My goal is really all about completion. Right now, we’ve not done well.”
Many students enter college and must take remedial courses that they must pay for but don’t count toward a degree, Petro said.
It also means that it takes longer for them to graduate from college, and often they get frustrated and drop out.
Patrick Gallaway, an Ohio Department of Education spokesman, said in an email that much discussion has occurred and is ongoing regarding the OGT and alternatives as a measure of college and career readiness.
“At this time, there are no concrete plans to move away from the OGT,” he said. “Ohio just entered into the Partnership for Assessment and Readiness for College and Careers consortia, a multistate effort to develop the new online assessments that will roll out in 2014-15. These will feature the more rigorous standards aligned with the common core.”
The Common Core Standards is an initiative adopted by most states that outlines the knowledge and skills children should learn in kindergarten through 12th grade.
Gallaway said Stan Heffner, state superintendent of public instruction, “has been talking about the assessments as they are now and how they are based on students’ meeting the minimum competencies, and that is what we need to change and where the focus is at this time. It has not been determined if something will replace the OGT.”
Mahoning Valley school superintendents expect some type of change.
“The target is always moving,” said Stan Watson, Liberty superintendent. “We get geared up here for the OGT, we try to improve with the classes we have, but when the target is always moving, it’s difficult to hit.”
Poland Superintendent Robert Zorn agreed.
“We always have concerns about change because we’re all here for the kids and want to see kids succeed and what will give them the best chance,” he said
Zorn said he doesn’t much care for high-stakes tests and prefers an approach that considers more elements of a student’s work.
However, if the state is sticking with high-stakes tests, he prefers the ACT to the OGT for districts such as Poland.
About 95 percent of Poland students go on to college, he said, so they have to take that test anyway.
But like Liberty’s Watson, Zorn gets frustrated with all of the changes.
For students in high school, this will mark the third different test they’ve had to take to graduate, he said.
Linda Ross, director of instruction at Boardman schools, however, believes a change is a good idea.
With the Common Core Standards and by joining the Partnership for Assessment and Readiness for College and Careers consortia, Ohio is moving closer to a national test. That will ensure that all students across the country are evaluated on the same criteria.