By Rene Sanchez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 23, 1997; Page A01

Two years ago, this city's struggling public schools scrapped a multiple-choice test they had used since the late 1970s to assess students in math and decided the time had come to do something bold.

They created a radically new test with a rule still rare in the nation's schools: Students who failed it would not graduate. The test stressed word problems describing real-life situations. It forced students to apply math concepts, think analytically and show their work. Officials worried the passing rate might be low.

It was much worse. Of the first Milwaukee high school students who took the test – black and white, rich and poor – 79 percent failed. Many of them apparently were so stumped by the problems they turned in exams virtually blank.

"We were really thrown by the results," said Cynthia Ellwood, director of educational services for Milwaukee's public schools. "We knew having higher standards was going to take hard work, but we never realized just how much until then."

There are few ideas in American education as momentous now as forcing schools to require more of students, then judging what they know with tests that have serious consequences for those who fail. Those two tasks stand as the most fundamental and often the most difficult of any facing school districts striving to escape the culture of mediocrity many educators say still pervades the nation's classrooms.

President Clinton is vowing to make higher academic standards a cornerstone of his second term. He is calling for national tests in reading and math, an unprecedented federal step. Many states, including Maryland and Virginia, also are revamping their curricula and exams to bring more rigor to classes. But much of that work is new or still taking shape. Whether it makes a difference is an open question.

In Milwaukee, schools already are wrestling with the hard truths of having higher standards. The city's tumultuous battle over the past few years to demand much more of students in math, and hold them accountable with tough tests, offers a revealing illustration of the perils and rewards that soon may confront many other school districts nationwide that are stepping uneasily down the same path.

"Everyone wants high standards, but when schools get serious about it, they tend to get a cold splash in the face," said Diane S. Ravitch, a senior research scholar at New York University who was assistant secretary of education in the Bush administration. "What they risk finding is that an extraordinary number of kids do not measure up."

To many students here, that discovery has been quite painful. Jimise Foreman, a senior at Milwaukee's Pulaski High School, has one last chance to pass the math test, and time is short. Her graduation is looming this spring, and she has big plans. Maybe a career as a nurse, she says, or a good job on the local police force.

But until she and hundreds of other students pass, they are not going anywhere. "We never had to do anything like this before," she said one recent afternoon after a math class. "I don't think we were prepared. But I'm trying to work harder."

Milwaukee's first test results provoked immense uproar. The school system had revised math lessons and retrained teachers to lay groundwork for the test, and had warned the community that standards were being raised. But many parents and students were shocked and furious. The school board nearly retreated. Faced with the humiliating prospect of flunking so many students, there was even talk of creating two kinds of diplomas – one for those who passed the math test and one for those who did not.

The city's shame and outrage deepened when House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) began citing the abysmal test results as a symbol of how U.S. education was collapsing.

But after a few months of reflection, something unusual happened: Instead of just blaming the test, some school leaders started blaming themselves. Teachers seemed more willing to change their classroom habits. High schools started after-school and Saturday tutoring sessions in math. The city shifted funds to help. Churches and businesses donated school supplies and volunteered tutors. Attendance at PTA meetings rose.

Six months later, when the city gave the same test to the same students again, 55 percent of them passed. The tally keeps improving.

"The failure was so massive, it actually helped," said Derek Brewer, who helps coordinate tutoring programs for the school system. "Maybe for the first time, adults had to ask themselves, 'Do we really think these kids can do it?' "

Pressure to improve school standards has been growing across the nation during this decade – from parents who want diplomas to have more value and from business leaders desperate to hire more skilled workers. Seismic shifts in the job market are making prowess in reading and math ever more important.

Some states are at work on the issue. Leaders in subjects such as math and science also have recently created national guidelines for what students should know. The Clinton administration has joined the effort with its Goals 2000 program, which gives states money to strengthen curricula and train teachers.

But there is widespread concern that schools still are not making many strides. Nationally, student achievement in math and science is inching upward. But American students still tend to post mediocre scores in those subjects when matched against their peers in many other nations. In reading, the record is even more dismal.

The last time a sample of students took the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test that broadly gauges student achievement and is noted for rigor, about 40 percent of fourth-graders nationally did not demonstrate even basic skills in reading. Clinton often cites that figure to dramatize the need for higher standards.

Across the nation, there is substantial resistance to national tests that would hold schools to standards set by the federal government. In large part, that is because educators want to preserve strict local autonomy over schools. But subscribing to national standards also could present many districts with embarrassing results.

Several recent studies have illustrated that problem. In Wisconsin, for example, 88 percent of fourth-graders meet the state's goal for reading in fourth grade. On the national assessment, only 35 percent of students are proficient in the subject at that grade. The gap is just as huge in many other states.

"The bar is still not being raised high enough," said Marshall S. Smith, deputy secretary of education. "But retraining teachers, trying to end social promotion – it's all very hard stuff. It's like taking bad medicine. No one likes to do that, even when you know it's eventually going to be good for you."

Clinton's proposal is an attempt to dare states to do more. Beginning in 1999, he wants schools to give national exams to fourth-graders in reading and to eighth-graders in math. The annual tests would be voluntary and last 90 minutes. Clinton officials say the tests would give states a much better idea of how good their standards are.

But opposition to the president's plan is forming in Congress and state legislatures. Lawmakers who revere the distinctly American tradition of controlling schools locally say the tests could bring too much federal intrusion into classrooms.

Other skeptics worry that putting great emphasis on national tests could give a decisive advantage to affluent schools with more resources to prepare for them. Some educators say a serious risk of the tests is that a disproportionately high number of poor minority students may fail, a trend some school districts have witnessed.

"I like what the president is saying, but it will take more commitment to schools," said Nancy Conner, the principal at Washington High School here. "It won't come cheap."

Clinton administration officials say the president's new education budget will deliver more resources to needy schools. "The argument about the effects of standards and tests on poor kids is important," Smith said. "But we have to cut into this cycle of failure."

That is exactly what Milwaukee's schools believe they are doing – the hard way.

After the first math test, officials met with high school students citywide and invited principals to listen. The teenagers were enraged. How could they have good grades and fail? Why should only they suffer the consequences of the test? What about teachers? Brewer, who coordinates math tutoring, presided over those meetings and let students pour out their frustrations. Then he urged them to understand one point.

"This test," he warned, "is not going away."

They had to take it more seriously, and so did teachers. For the first time, school officials had stark evidence that what they were preaching to teachers about math at weekend workshops or summer training sessions was not seeping into classes.

"We learned that if you really want to change teaching, you change tests," Ellwood said. "That's what teachers will teach to."

Milwaukee gives students three chances to pass the math test – once in their junior year, twice in their senior year. Those who strike out can still make a case for graduating by presenting a portfolio of other academic work in math.

Eventually, more than 80 percent of the first Milwaukee high school class to take the test passed it. Foreman's senior class has reached 75 percent and has one more try. A gap is emerging, however, in the passing rates of white and minority students.

About 88 percent of white students now pass the test. For black students the rate is 66 percent and for Hispanics, 75 percent. Other serious problems persist – such as student attitudes toward the test. Some of them still loathe it.

"It's stupid; it's ridiculous," said Adam Riley, a senior at Pulaski. "This is the only thing holding me back."

Some teachers also contend the school system has not yet redesigned its math curricula in ways that would better prepare students for the test. But other Milwaukee teachers say they have taken it upon themselves, finally, to change.

Cathy Schactner is among them. A veteran math instructor, she said she was appalled with the first test results and realized she had to share blame. So she reexamined how she taught. She also said that she tried to stop using lack of class time, or the problems some students bring to her classes, as excuses.

Now, she tries to let students work more in groups to solve problems. She also is giving them more problems that require more reasoning. "And I don't talk as much," she said, "I try to let students talk more about how [they are] solving something."

There are other hopeful signs. Foreman, who is 19 and has two children, is spending a few nights a week taking a consumer math course at a community college. She thinks it will prepare her for a job – and for passing the test. One recent Friday night at a PTA meeting at Pulaski, Brewer was startled to see several dozen parents. He asked a few why they had come. "That test," he said they told him.

Milwaukee has other changes in the works. It is requiring students to start taking algebra earlier and plans to use more of it on the test. Some officials think the test still may be too easy, especially now that students are being better prepped for it.

"This has been tough, but it proves these kids have the ability to do more than we have been expecting of them," Conner said. "If you could see their faces when they finally pass, you would know we're doing the right thing."