By Martha Jefferson

Since President Bush implemented his groundbreaking “No Child Left Behind” Act in 2001 mandating “standards-based educational reform,” Baltimore County Public Schools have scrambled to come up with a way to make sure that their students are getting a quality education that can be tested.

Each high school in the system now has to make AYP- Adequate Yearly Progress- and the results from the High School Assessments (HSA’s) are a part of AYP. According to NCLB, schools that do not meet AYP for two years in a row are identified as “in need of improvement,” and must find ways to improve their scores.

Schools in BCPS should be held accountable for the education that they provide to students. But, at what cost? English, social studies, math and science teachers in BCPS high schools are now teaching to the test. It was inevitable. What’s a school system to do? Each discipline has a curriculum to get through each year. The curriculum is huge and unwieldy- tons of information to get through in one school year. It’s almost impossible to get through it all.

In addition, BCPS high schools have created special classes designed for 11th and 12th grade students who have not passed the HSA. This is a good thing, but the teachers who are teaching these classes are being taken away from teaching the classes in the discipline- thus, the class sizes in regular classes- English, biology, government, and algebra- grow larger. Large class sizes is a major problem in education, and a major sticking point with both teachers and parents alike.

Classes are interrupted throughout the year –by among other things, the guidance department, character assemblies, and field trips, which are all important interruptions. This year alone, high school students in BCPS will take and re-take the HSA’s four times.

Each time, classes are interrupted for two weeks, and various parts of the school building are off-limits to students and teachers, depending on the school, including the library and all computer labs. (Students now take their HSA’s online). Students miss classes because they’re testing and the entire school day is modified because of testing.

So, for eight weeks during the school year, HSA testing rules the school. Students are in school for 187 days, so the math is pretty easy to figure out. And what about the curriculum? Granted, the HSA tests mostly concentrate on classes that 9th graders take, and once students pass the HSA in that class, they go on with their schooling.

But many students have trouble passing the HSA’s because English is their second language, they have a learning disability, or sadly, they just don’t take the tests seriously. So, should high schools in BCPS just forget about the curriculum altogether and concentrate on the HSA’s? What do you think?