Last week, the Oregon Department of Education unanimously voted to remove a requirement for Oregon high schoolers to demonstrate basic mastery in reading, writing, and mathematics in order to graduate. The requirement, which was most often met using students’ standardized test results, has been paused since 2020.
According to state documents, the “Assessment of Essential Skills” benchmark is typically met when a student meets a cutoff score in a statewide standardized test, though alternatives can be used for students who opt out of the test, such as samples of classroom work or scores from other tests like the SAT or ACT.
While score cutoffs have been unavailable since the pause in 2020, a state guide from the 2016-2017 school year lists the cutoff for one popular test, the Smarter Balanced test, which student take in their 11th grade year, as a score of 2515 for reading and 2543 for math. Based on score percentile data from 2017-2018, assessments would put those scores roughly in the 25th and 45th percentiles respectively (assuming no major changes in student performance over one year).
While the math cutoff in particular might seem high, both ranges would barely put test takers just a few points into the “Level 2” range in Smarter Balanced’s 4-level scoring range. Level 2 scores are defined by the testing organization as meaning that a student has a “partial understanding of and ability to apply the knowledge and skills associated with college content readiness,” adding that a student in this level would need “support” to be ready for college.
While not every high school graduate can or should go to college, if a high school student can’t even demonstrate “partial” understanding of the subject matter of their classes, letting them continue on to their senior year and graduate high school without additional intervention is clearly irresponsible.
However, critics have framed the extra remediation many low-performing Oregon students receive as damaging. Department of Education officials opposed the policy in part because “higher rates of students of color, students learning English as a second language and students with disabilities ended up having to take intensive senior-year writing and math classes,” extra remediation that “denied those students the opportunity to take an elective,” according to The Oregonian.
Hellbound and Down 