Herald & Lantern 22 August '84 5

Lower Cape May Regional Skills Test Results To Bring Changes ft

By STANLEY KOTZEN When shock waves hit a shore community during

the summer season it can be assumed that the news relates either to a hurIt//*

i ricane warning or a shark scare. However, early in July, there was a jolt to the

pride of this community which probably did not affect business much, but had some far-reaching implications for all of us. As the new principal at Lower Cape May Regional, I was shocked to discover how poorly our youngsters have performed in the State Minimum Basic Skills and Proficiency Tests administered this past spring. On the proficiency test only 59.7 percent of our ninth graders passed the Math element of the test, 76.8 percent passed Reading, both figures below the state average. Our scores in the Minimum Basic Skills test were better, but not by much. THESE TESTS have been administered to all students, and of course they do not reflect on all of the outstanding young people who make up our school population or individual academic excellence, but the results do point out some definite weaknesses in our academic program. Comparatively and collectively too many of our youngsters are not - academically solid in the basic skills of Reading, Writing and Mathematics. We have already started to adjust our basic curriculm to insure that our students I will perform better next year. That does not mean to imply that we are simply going to work harder to prepare thetn for the statewide testing program. We are going to focus more energy on the foundamen tals and then build on a more firm base of academic performance THIS IS everybody's job in the community : parents, teachers, administrators and the students themselves. It is a genuine tribute to a community when its young people decide to remain in the f area where they have grown up, and Cape May I keeps its young people at an impressive rate. This maintains vitality in j •the community, but this vitality must also reflect the product of a fine education. Our future depends on I the way in which our young people assume leadership, and there is no denying the need for more literate, intelligent and informed decision making to bring us optimistically to the end of this century YOUNG PEOPLE must be brought to see by all of us that education is the key to their future and ours. We must encourage them to read and write and think. We must demand academic and intellectual effort in order for them to be able to survive in a world that is changing so rapidly that their greatest asset is their ability to learn. | Better test scores are not , our aim. A commitment to greater effort in our academic goals is what we all should be after. When our youngsters see and feel j the need to achieve in school as a means to a bet- j j ter life, then we will have j j made the strides that we all should be seeking as we sfirt this '84- '85 school

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