Forsyth schools retesting policy ruffles some parents

“I just overheard my daughter talking to her friend about her friend getting a 70 on a test and retaking it and getting an A,” Manley said. “My daughter, who is a straight-A student, made an 83 on the test, but because she made higher than an 80, she didn’t get to retake it. She was stuck with an B, and her friend got an A. That’s not right.”

When Manley set out to change the grading system at her daughter's school, she stumbled onto a philosophical shift in education in which, increasingly, grades are less important than students “mastering” subjects.

But are those policies unfair to students who are hard workers and fast learners and nail the test the first time? And do they undermine student discipline and erode the accuracy of grades as a measurement of a student’s preparedness for college and eligibility for the HOPE scholarship?

Manley took her case to the principal, telling her the grading scheme penalized students who made B's on the test. “She told me: Students don’t care about grades.’ I told her: ‘You obviously don’t know my daughter.’” When the principal told Manley the grading scheme wouldn’t change, Manley went to school board member Mike Dudgeon, who told her “we’re in the process of taking care of that.”

A month later the policy was changed. Now, if a student at South Forsyth Middle School makes below an 80 and retakes a test, the student can be credited with a score no higher than an 80 even if the student makes a 100.

Lissa Pijanowski, the associate superintendent in Forsyth who oversees the program, said Manley was the only parent to complain to the school board about it.  But she acknowledged the school system is fine-tuning the grading scheme -- which varies from school to school in the Forsyth system -- as a work in progress for the last four years.

“As we roll out new practices across schools it takes time to define a consistent policy after sufficient analysis of the teaching and learning practices,” said Pijanowski of the program Forsyth modeled after the “reteaching/reassessment” program of Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland.

Dudgeon, the school board member, said he’s always had “mixed feelings” about students being allow to retake tests, and has long been in favor of a system-wide grading policy that would be overseen by the school board, but he lost that vote in 2007.

Letting students take a test again teaches them a lesson that doesn’t always apply in “life and the real world where you don’t always get a second chance,” he said.

Parent Mark Rottman, whose daughter is a Forsyth fourth-grader, frets that letting a student take a test again conditions them to bad study habits.

“It also raises questions about teaching methods,” he said. “Are teachers being effective if students don’t get it the first time?”

Fulton County schools offer retesting as one of many "grade improvment opportunities" for students that may also include “a project, an essay, an oral presentation to demonstrate they are continuing to learn the class material,” said Allison Toller, spokeswoman for the school system.

Just as in Forsyth, teachers determine whether a student can retake a test after extra work or whether there’s a better way to improve the student’s grade and comprehension of the material. “The teacher in the classroom has the expertise to determine [if retaking a test] best guides a child toward mastering the material … based on a variety of factors, not the least of which is the learning style of the child,” said Toller.

Jay Dillon, spokesman for the Cobb County School District, said its retesting policy – which also varies from school to school – emphasizes that students put in extra effort to take a test again. Administrators said that is a deterrent to students just blowing off the first test.

“Efforts to allow lagging students to catch up are not allowed to interfere with the regular process, or advanced progress, of the rest of the class,” said Dillon..

Mark Elgart, president and CEO of AdvancED, the parent organization of the accrediting agency Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) said in his dealings and assessment of school systems across the country he’s found no down side to retesting because students are required to do additional work to take a test again.

“Retesting is a form of remediation because it requires the student to review again the material and prepare for the test,” Elgart said. “Schools are focused on the whole year of learning and the results students achieve at the end of the year. Students who are granted the opportunity more often than not achieve better results through retesting and ultimately learn more in the process.”

Pijanowski said Forsyth has been methodical in moving retesting procedures up through the grades.

“We have just barely tipped our toe in the water,” she said, in incorporating retesting into high schools, where so much hinges on grade point average – chiefly getting into college, and making a minimum B average to be eligible for the HOPE scholarship.

Parent Kathy Thomas, who has four children in Forsyth schools, including one in high school, said she strongly favors retesting.

“Going to school is not necessarily about the grade, it’s about learning and achieving standards, it’s not about competition and comparison between students,” she said.

Still, high school and retesting have Thomas a little concerned.

“Grades determine the valedictorian and what college you get into, but there are so many other factors in getting accepted to college,” she said.

As for HOPE, Thomas said she doesn’t think retesting will affect the number of students who are eligible because they can take tests again.

"Students who are going to get the HOPE scholarship already have B averages," she said. "The reason they want to re-take a test is to go from B to A."

Barbara Manley is satisfied that the re-testing scheme was changed at her daughter’s school, but she's wary of Forsyth schools after the experience.

“They’ve muddied the waters so badly I don’t know” what they can do to fix the grades under the old scheme, she said.

Metro School systems retesting practices

Retest                                                   Guidelines

Forsyth  (yes)                                    Varies by school

Dekalb (no)

City of Atlanta (no)

Gwinnett (yes)                                   Varies by school

Cobb (yes)                                           Varies by school

Fulton County (yes)                        Varies by school

Cherokee County (no)