Projects Receiving CUAP Funding
Passing the Georgia Graduation Test
Dr. Monte Salyer and Ms. Sarida Hoy Rationale and Project Objectives
The purpose of this project is to help ESOL juniors and seniors pass all parts of the Georgia Graduation Test so that they can graduate from high school and continue their education, very probably at Dalton State College, a unit of the University System of Georgia. Last year at Dalton High School 167 students passed all four parts of the Graduation Test. Unfortunately, only 7 of the 167 students who passed were current or within one year exited ESOL students. Evidently, ESOL students need additional help with this test. We believe the ESOL students in question are by and large content aware, but that they lack test-specific reading comprehension and other test taking skills.
Outcomes
Partnership
This project has 5 core area/ESOL teachers in Dalton High School to serve as program instructors and 1 ESL instructor at Dalton State College to serve as program planning coordinator. Hence, the two institutions partnering in this project are Dalton High School and Dalton State College.
Timetable
We are providing an after-school program that gives these students additional help out of the classroom. We have finished the fall session, and are continuing in another session until March, when the students will be tested in all subject areas.
We have 1 Math, 1 Science, 1 Social Studies, 1 Language Arts, and 1 Writing teacher. Each teacher has 10 to 15 students to work with for eight weeks (each in Fall and Spring). In the eight weeks, the teachers use the Passing the Graduation Test in Georgia Review books with the students. They will also supplement the material with the Georgia High School Graduation Test software provided by Dalton State College. The students use this software at least once a week. This software provides practice questions similar to the ones on the test. After the eight weeks are over, the students rotate to a different teacher in another subject area and start the process again.
The Dalton Public School System provides matching funds in the form of necessary bus transportation for Hispanic ESOL students needing to return home after each daily session of the program. The project accessed private funding to continue in the spring session (through March).
Outcomes, Impact, and Potential
Participating Hispanic ESOL students increase their chances of obtaining their High School Diploma once they pass all the parts of the Graduation Test.
Participating Hispanic ESOL students are adequately motivated to consider post-secondary education as they pass at least three of the test parts by their senior year. As seniors, they then only need to focus on passing the remaining two parts of the graduation exam. We anticipate that at least six (6) of the ten (10) seniors will pass all remaining parts of the graduation exam, and thus pass this barrier to becoming college students.
At present, there are many Hispanic ESOL students at and from Dalton High School who wish continue their education, but who cannot pass perhaps just one of the sections of the graduation test, even after they have completed all other high school requirements for graduation.
Such hapless students tend to become discouraged. Having attended four to five years of high school, they walk through graduation, only to receive the insignificant "consolation prize" of a Certificate of Attendance instead of a bona fide Diploma of Graduation. The after-school review program will lead these students to pass the graduation test, and thus increase the students' opportunities to attend college.
Sustainability
Because this program successfully prepares the targeted number of student participants to pass the various segments of the Georgia High School Graduation Test, the Dalton High School administration is continuing to provide transportation. Private funding is paying the instructor's stipends.
Dalton State College and Dalton High School
June 10, 2003