Curricula Retooled For State Test Exit Exam Forces Changes In What Students Will Learn

An Idaho high school diploma no longer will be an automatic rite of passage for every senior who spends 13 years in the public school system.

Now, before receiving a diploma, students will have to prove their knowledge of everything from algebraic equations to the difference between the U.S. and French revolutions.

To make sure that Idaho students are learning those lessons, districts are working overtime and spending thousands of dollars this summer to align the curricula taught to students with Idaho’s achievement standards passed by the 1999 Legislature.

The state, which is developing a testing system to measure what students are learning, strives to have it in place by 2005.

The Coeur d’Alene, Kellogg and Wallace school districts are ahead of their neighbors, piloting the new curriculum this school year. Other North Idaho districts will make the adjustment in the next few years.

“We saw it coming,” said Hazel Bauman, Coeur d’Alene School District’s curriculum director.

Bauman is hesitant to say the new guidelines will enable Idaho to offer students a better education. Instead, she said, the standards will help districts eliminate gaps and redundancies in what is taught in kindergarten through 12th grade.

“It’ll help keep us more accountable,” Bauman said.

The standards outline what Idaho students must know in five areas: math, science, health, language arts and social studies.

Already, teachers are seeing the benefit.

Cindy Perry, the Coeur d’Alene district nurse who teaches puberty lessons to fifth-graders, said the health standards will ensure students have continuity in their education. Perry served on one of the district’s five curriculum committees this summer.

For example, when sex education is taught in junior high, Perry said, it’s common for students to lack a basic understanding of contagious diseases.

In first grade, Perry said, children should learn about the common cold and how it’s transferred. That will build a foundation for later lessons about AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, she said.

This isn’t a problem isolated to health classes.

Perry said the standards will alleviate repeat teachings, meaning a student who read “Romeo and Juliet” in eighth grade won’t study the Shakespeare classic again in 10th grade. The guidelines will make it easier for high school teachers to know what students were taught at other grade levels.

Bonnie Farmin, curriculum director for Kellogg and Wallace school districts, sees another benefit.

Before this summer, Wallace went years without updating its curriculum, which led to stagnation, she said.

Farmin said elementary teachers ended up focusing on their strengths and skimming over subjects, such as math, that were more difficult to teach. This made what students learned each year a gamble.

“It’s a little scary,” Farmin said.

But with the standardized state curriculum, teachers must teach what the state requires or students will fail the exiting tests.

Tom Farley, state Education Department federal programs bureau chief, emphasizes that the state standards aren’t meant to punish students, but show teachers and administrators what students are learning.

“We don’t want our assessments to be punitive,” Farley said. “We want them to inform.”

It remains unknown what consequences, such as not graduating from high school, will be faced by students who fail the exiting tests. Those questions won’t be answered until the testing system is developed, Farley said.

In most cases, the curriculums districts are adopting are more stringent than the state guidelines and involve community suggestions.

Bauman said local control over what is taught to students is important. That’s why the Coeur d’Alene district surveyed residents and held public forums. Bauman said the state standards encourage districts to customize their teachings to conform with the community.

For example, Coeur d’Alene residents wanted students to learn “basic conventions of dress and manners.” Bauman said this ideal ranked higher on residents’ responses than the need for foreign language.

Although Coeur d’Alene and Shoshone County districts are ahead in their curriculum alignment, other districts are working on the task, knowing they have a couple more years to finalize the changes.

Farley said it’s often difficult for the smaller districts to find the cash and staff to readjust curriculum.

Although West Bonner County School District is new, Superintendent Joe Malletta said it doesn’t have an advantage in the development of new curriculum.

When the district split from Bonner County School District 82 last year, it continued teaching the same curriculum. Malletta said it was impossible to start over when the new district was trying to organize.

“The truth is we can’t move any faster or be any more flexible than our teachers can adjust,” Malletta said.

This sidebar appeared with the story: EXIT EXAMS Big test

Beginning in 2005, high school seniors in Idaho will be expected to pass an exit exam on their knowledge in math, science, health, language arts and social studies before getting a diploma.