http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/LD0531.html

Juniors' AIMS results to stay on transcripts

Tuesday, 23 November 1999

PHOENIX (AP) - The state Board of Education heard an earful of concerns and
criticism about the AIMS test from educators and parents yesterday.
The board agreed the state should help students do better. However, to the
disappointment of many in the audience, Superintendent Lisa Graham Keegan
fended off efforts to not include the results on 12th-grade transcripts of
the first students who took the three-subject exam.
As sophomores last April, current juniors were the first students to take
the test, which measures students' knowledge of material in state curriculum
standards. While big majorities either passed the reading portion outright
or nearly passed the writing part, only 11 percent passed math on the first
of five tries.
``If I could have set out a scenario for failure, I could not have done as
well,'' said Scott Mundell, associate superintendent of Marana Unified
School District.
Unrealistic expectations could cause frustrated students to drop out, said
Marcia Sisley, a Tucson Unified School District parent. ``What is this going
to do to their self-esteem?''
The discrepancy between math results on one hand and reading and writing
results on the other, said board member Thava Freedman, a community college
official from Navajo County, ``is a signal that perhaps something is not
quite right.''
At her suggestion, the board will review the math portion's grading during
its next meeting in January.
Critics say AIMS, particularly its math portion, was unrealistically tough
and unfair to students whose instruction in lower grades was not keyed to
the standards. In response, Keegan said most sophomores will not have all
the classes they need to pass AIMS, but will by the time they graduate.
The board previously decided to postpone the requirement that students pass
AIMS to earn a diploma so that it starts with current sophomores, the Class
of 2002.
That took current juniors off the graduation hook, but speakers told the
board yesterday that it is still unfair that those students' 12th-grade
transcripts will show whether they passed AIMS.
``We were told it was not a high-stakes test,'' said Renate Krompasky, a
Flowing Wells Unified School District official from Tucson.
Keegan, who participated in the meeting by telephone, argued for keeping the
transcript data. It helps motivate current juniors to do their best on the
test and that is necessary to measure how students' learning of the
standards changes over time, she said.
``We will lose the information,'' she said.
The board deadlocked 4-4 on a motion to take AIMS off current juniors'
transcripts, in effect leaving it on them.
Keegan is asking the Legislature for $160 million for AIMS-related measures,
including $100 million for five more school days, $25 million for three more
days of teacher professional development, $30 million for intervention
programs and $5 million for a student-tracking computer system.
The intervention programs could include extra instruction after school or
during summers, Keegan said. ``We ought to do everything to get students
ready.''
The board later voted to tentatively support Keegan's push for extra class
days, teacher training and intervention, but did not endorse her specific
proposals.

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Visit the Arizona Department of Education for more information about AIMS.


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