Mat-Su officials say impact to district students, graduates is minimal

MAT-SU — Cody Pierce doesn’t have a diploma, although he graduated high school 10 years ago. And yet, he’s in Afghanistan right now, serving his second tour with an Army MP unit at Bagram Airfield and even served as part of the protection detail for President Barack Obama during his visit to Afghanistan.

Pierce is one of more than 3,000 Alaska students over the last 10 years who did not qualify for a diploma because they were unable to pass the High School Graduation Qualifying Examination. Instead, he received a certificate of attendance, according his mother, Betty Pierce of Palmer.

“Not getting a diploma after all he’d worked for was devastating,” she said. “It was quite a blow. I had his cap and gown ordered, everything.”

Exit exam testing was abolished with the passage of House Bill 278 this spring. Mat-Su Borough officials say its will impact will be minimal in the Valley, however.

According to Gene Stone, assistant superintendent of the Mat-Su Borough School District, most Valley students passed the test. “Some 99.4 percent of the students that had completed all of the credits required for graduation passed the tests,” he said.

While there were “a few kids each year — maybe 10 or 20” who did not pass, the majority were students who already had other issues, and often those kids dropped out of high school before graduating.

Stone also said the qualifying exam was not the district’s main evaluation tool for students.

“We already have other assessment tools in place,” he said. “We weren’t dependent on the exit exam at all. However, it was required by the state.”

Stone said Mat-Su students are tested starting at kindergarten, and if they are not proficient at grade-level, they are given the assistance needed long before moving on to the high school level.

Pierce’s class was the first to have to pass the exit exam to receive a diploma. His mother said he easily passed the reading and writing sections, but was unable to pass the math portion.

“He tried several times,” she said. “One time he came within only two or three points of passing.”

But Pierce was a good student.

“He tried really hard. He wasn’t a discipline problem,” his mom said.

Pierce said her son, now married with two children and another on the way, is doing well. He’s taking college courses and working toward a possible degree in criminal justice. “He’s made it,” she said.

Pierce only learned last week that the exams were abolished. “I’ve heard some people say they shouldn’t have gotten rid of it,” she said. “But I’d also heard they’d made it a lot easier over the years, too — which is really not fair to the people who had to take it initially.”

The qualifying exam was intended to measure skills at the 10th-grade level. Students were tested beginning their sophomore year, and if they did not pass had additional opportunities to re-take the test in their junior and senior years.

Stone said approximately 150 Valley students were denied diplomas since the test began in 2004, and they may now be eligible to receive diplomas as long as other criteria are met.

Last year’s nationwide Education Next poll, administered under the auspices of the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance, found that nearly eight in 10 people who responded felt high school students should have to pass exit exams before earning a diploma.

Stone said while the Mat-Su Valley had an “alarmingly low” four-year graduation rate a few years ago, it’s currently about 76 percent.

Rep. Lynn Gattis, who chairs the House Education Committee, said there are several other tests still in place for evaluating Alaska’s students that provide “a more meaningful college and career readiness assessment.” These include the SAT, ACT, which assess college readiness, and WorkKeys, which helps assess career readiness skills.

Gattis said if the exit exams showed one thing consistently, it was that the students already struggling were less likely to pass the exams.

“We looked at who the kids were that were not passing,” she said. “In some cases, it was the learning disabilities who worked very, very hard and yet were not necessarily able to pass the test. But also, you had the kids who were having family problems. The ones who got pregnant.”

Gattis said she’d rather see more of a focus on students passing smaller tests more frequently.

“Parents, our kids should be passing tests on a daily basis … end-of-chapter tests, end-of-semester tests. If a child can’t read at second grade, let’s address this. If they can’t read at the third grade, let’s address this now. Let’s not wait until they’re in 10th grade before we do something.”