NARS and State EXIT EXAMS

State's Graduation and Testing Requirements

Private School Graduation Requirements are NOT regulated by the State of Maine or by the State of Florida. By law and by regulation, NARS students in Maine or elsewhere, are NOT bound by

Maine's MEA testing
Maine's "Learning Results" regulations
any requirement to pass high-stakes EXIT EXAMS

Further, for our Florida students,

FCAT testing is not required to receive a high school diploma.
FL students may graduate from NARS with less than the 24 credits
required in FL public schools; instead, FL students must meet the NARS
graduation requirements.

Four items are explained below.

NARS students are not required to take the MEA’s
NARS students are not required to meet Maine’s Learning Results Standards
The Florida Department of Education does NOT regulate the policies or requirements of private schools.
The differences in standards that separate public schools and private schools.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1. Private schools who remain truly private and do not receive public funding are not required to participate in the Maine Educational Assessment (MEA) testing program.

This excerpt is from the Maine Department of Education’s document entitled, “MAINE EDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT (MEA) OPERATIONAL PROCEDURES MARCH 2004 ADMINISTRATION”

It reads, in part,

“1.0 ENROLLMENT ISSUES
1.1 Participation of Enrolled Students
Each student enrolled in a school covered by Chapter 127 shall participate
in the Maine Educational Assessment (MEA) in grades 4, 8, and 11.”

Since NARS is not a Chapter 127 school. Nether are homeschoolers.
Therefore, neither homeschoolers nor NARS students are required to take the MEA tests.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

2. This excerpt is taken from a document entitled,
“REGULATIONS FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SYSTEM OF LEARNING RESULTS CHAPTER 125 BASIC APPROVAL STANDARDS: PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL ADMINISTRATIVE UNITS A Joint Rule of the State Board of Education and Commissioner of Education CHAPTER 127 INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAM, ASSESSMENT, AND DIPLOMA REQUIREMENTS A Rule of the Commissioner of Education September 2002”

“1.03 ... Students are not required to meet the content standards of the
system of Learning Results established in Me. Dept. of Ed. Reg. 131 unless enrolled in a public school or in a private school approved for tuition that enrolls at least 60% publicly funded students.”

Since NARS is not “a private school approved for tuition” (i.e., public funds), then our private school students are exempt from the Maine Learning Results.

ASIDE:
It might be noted here that private school exemption is a “point of contention” among some public educators. Some believe our private schools enjoy a “privileged status” because we are not bound by the exhaustive regulations of schools that take public money.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

3. For our Florida students, their Department of Education provides an even clearer picture on how they DO NOT regulate the details in private schools:

“Legislative intent not to regulate, control, approve or accredit non-public educational institutions, churches, their ministries, religious instruction, freedoms or rites, is explicit. The Department of Education does not have jurisdiction and there are very few references to private schools in Florida law. The owners of private elementary and secondary schools in Florida are solely responsible for all aspects of their educational programs, including:

certification, qualification and training of teachers and administrators;
content and comprehensiveness of the curriculum;
duties, qualifications and salaries of faculty and staff; tuition, class size, fee scales, pupil expenditures and refund policies;
student assessment, academic credits, grades and graduation or promotion
requirements;
student regulation, dismissal and expulsion policies;
student records content, retention, transfer and release."

"Also, some highly internal matters subject to the wide variability of individual school philosophies include dress code, discipline, punishment and behavior norms, extra curricular activities, religious participation, parental responsibilities and parental involvement in school activities.”

Therefore, NARS students in Florida are not required to be tested with the FCAT or any other EXIT EXAM. Further, since the state does not regulate the courses, credits, or graduation requirements, Florida private school students do not have to earn the same number of credits as those in the Florida public schools. (Many of our students WANT to, but they don’t HAVE to.)

4. The truly private schools are not required to do all the things that the public schools are. The implications of this to the public schools seems to create a “superior - inferior” attitude among professional educators.

Public school administrators and those in the Maine Department of Education (and occasionally those from the Florida Department of Education) appear to believe their system requirements make their education and their diploma superior. They express their sense of superiority because their public schools MUST meet these standards of measurement, while private schools do not.

But the truly private schools are required to meet the absolute ULTIMATE standard -- providing what parents want. If we provide the education the parents want for their students, then we stay in business. If we do not do the job the parents expect, they withdraw their students, and, we go out of business. That is the ultimate standard.

The public schools are not held to this high standard. The public schools are NOT required to provide an education that meets the standards of the public, yet they still get to use the public’s money. Public schools stay in business whether they do a good job for the public, or not.

When the conversation involves meeting standards, it is clear that the truly private schools are forced to meet a much higher standard than the public schools. Or the private school dies.

The long-established truth goes something like, “A private school education is superior to a public school education.” Parental choice is the reason for this.