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FOR THE RECORD: This story incorrectly reported that 37 percent of Albuquerque Public Schools seniors passed the Standards Based Assessment last year. Actually, 63 percent passed the state test, which is one of several options required for getting a diploma.
SANTA FE — “You Only Graduate Once” says a slogan on the Facebook page created by a group of Santa Fe high school students. But their real concern is whether they will graduate at all.
Students at both Capital and Santa Fe high schools are mobilizing to protest use of the Standards-Based Assessment scores as a graduation requirement. They object to the timing of the exam, what’s being done to prepare them to retake it and uncertainty about alternatives they may have should they fail to pass the test a second time.
This is the first year SBA will be used as the high school exit exam for students statewide. It tests skills at about an 11th-grade level, while the High School Competency Exam it replaces measured skills at an eighth-grade level.
Last year, juniors and seniors took the SBA exam but passing didn’t count as a graduation requirement for the Class of 2012. It does for this year’s seniors, but the majority of students in Santa Fe Public Schools failed to get a passing score on either the reading and math requirements, or both.
In the Santa Fe district, 43 percent of students passed the SBA when it was administered last winter. In the Albuquerque school district, the figure was 63 percent.
“The vast majority of those were just a few questions away from passing,” Lynn Vanderlinden, Santa Fe’s director of assessment and accountability, said of Santa Fe students. “They were so close, it’s painful.”
Deni Myers, the student body president at Santa Fe High, felt the pain. She missed the passing score by just one point.
“Even if I passed, I’d still do this, because I don’t think it’s fair,” said Myers, who started raising concerns last spring. “We didn’t go through 13 years of school for nothing.”
Myers started a Facebook page, contacted the school board and has been trying to rally support from fellow students. Several students at Capital High are promoting their cause by wearing T-shirts that say, “I failed SBA, did you?” and, “Don’t set us up for failure.”
The Public Education Department set an email to the school board outlining ways students could show competency if they don’t pass the test, such as their scores from the ACT or SAT exams. The email said details would be coming.
Santa Fe Superintendent Joel Boyd said he was sympathetic to the students, but until PED provides clarification, there’s little he can say or do.
“The problem is because everything is in planning,” he said. “I can’t tell our youngsters one way or the other about their high school graduation, which is very critical to them, without me being certain myself. The one thing we do know is they have the opportunity to take this test right now.”
