Liz Burke, WPRO News
Rhode Island parents and activates gathered outside Pilgrim High School in Warwick on Tuesday afternoon to voice why they feel the NECAP exam isn’t fair to students.
“This requirement is a blatant discrimination against my Katherine and all the other students in this state who have tried and pushed and studied endlessly for years only to be told that this one thing means their effort was useless,” says Margaret Lopes, a mother of a junior with a math disability.
According to statistics 47% of juniors in Johnson, 43% in Cranston and 38% in Warwick would not pass the test that could become a graduation requirement.
“She’ll do her very best every time I guarantee it. But for her, scoring a 2 in the proficiency level is like for me or you to try to take a tight rope from that building to that building. Is that fair to our students?” says Tina Egan, a mother of a junior with down syndrome.
Education Commissioner Deborah Gist says the exam would be taken by students in the spring of their junior year of high school. If they do not pass, they will have to take it again the fall of their senior year.
“This isn’t about punishing or holding anything away from anyone. This is about making sure that before we move our students off past high school to tackle the world that they’re prepared,” says Gist.
Gist says the first time they take the test; students need to pass with a proficiency of a 2. If they fail to do that then the second time they take the test they do not need to pass with a 2, they only need to show on the test that they have improved.
“We have no intention of having a student who’s ready to graduate, even if the test doesn’t show they’re ready but truly know the skills and have the content they need, to keep them from graduating,” says Gist.
