Once upon a time, there was a test called the Arizona's Instrument of Measuring Standards (AIMS). One day, the Arizona Department of Education decided to make sophomores in the class of 2002 pass the AIMS test in order to graduate. But no matter how hard the AIMS test tried, it never quite made anyone happy.
"This test is too hard," the students and their mommies and daddies whined. So they took to protesting the implementation of AIMS as a graduation requirement, while over half of the students who did take the test failed miserably.
"This test is too easy," the Arizona Department of Education complained. So they made sure AIMS tested on only the aspects of education that they believed truly mattered: reading, writing and arithmetic.
All the while, the U.S. Department of Education used their own program entitled the "No Child Left Behind Act" to tantalize public schools with federal funding if their students demonstrated proficiency in those same subjects. Arizona was no exception.
So while the kids, the mommies and daddies, and the Arizona Department of Education strived to find a test that fit just right, students failed at alarming rates. Parents and teachers candidly bickered over who should be held accountable for the students' poor performances and the state department did the only thing that they could: they postponed the test.
But today, four years later, not much has changed -- especially not the miserable test scores. According to Arizona Republic statistics, more than 70 percent of high school students failed the AIMS test last year overall. A whopping 80 percent failed the math portion, 62 percent failed the reading portion, and 59 percent failed writing. This is certainly not an improvement of 2000's test results, when the AIMS test was first proposed as a graduation requirement. In 2000, the Arizona Department of Education reported that about 62 percent of the class of 2002 (then sophomores) passed the reading portion, 60 percent passed the writing, and 32 percent passed math.
What do these scores tell us? At the least, the scores indicate that a strong pass rate among students is about as idealistic as a fairy tale. State Superintendent of Schools Tom Horne proposed that educators strive to reach a 90 percent pass rate for their students.
"We will no longer graduate students who cannot read their own diplomas. If a student receives a diploma, the student will have passed a reasonable test," Horne said in his State of Education speech earlier this year.
But what happens when they don't reach the 90 percent pass rate? Are schools going to continually fight to make the test even easier to avoid accountability that the students, teachers and parents should equally share? As part of the class of 2002, my high school was neither ranked "highly performing" nor "excelling" according to the Arizona Department of Education, yet I easily passed the AIMS test the first time around, and then got sick of hearing about it for the next two years.
We've heard every argument and excuse in the book about this test. Research has found that the material tested in AIMS is hardly relevant in the real world. However, AIMS testing aside, how much of what we learned in high school actually qualifies as relevant? I can't recall how many times I pondered about "Hamlet" with my co-workers or discussed the integral of a calculus equation with my boss. Hardly. Yet school has taught us to understand certain material, which in essence trains our minds to open up for new material -- an important skill in the real world.
Then there's the argument that students will remain in high school forever. In this case, I find no problem with leaving kids who do not demonstrate enough proficiency behind. As bad as it sounds, forcing kids to move on to the next level while they still continue to struggle sounds even worse. If students of all ages are forced to go back to college to attain a higher education, there is nothing wrong with holding a similar standard to high school students who demonstrate a lack of competence in high school subjects.
For all the complaints and arguments I hear about the AIMS test, it would be much simpler to just make these kids take the darn test in order to graduate. If the students fail, they acknowledge their shortcomings in their prospective subject area and must work harder to achieve passing results the next time around. After all, students in the class of 2006 who took the AIMS test this spring have six more turns to give it another crack. So, if people just stopped with their excuses and whining, maybe we could actually get serious about taking this test and graduating.
As a result we might not all live happily ever after, but at least we'll all be smarter.
Lily Yan is a journalism and political science junior. Reach her at Lily7174@msn.com
