Fading program has been successful in Sisters

Back in 1991, their political inventors hoped that Oregon’s CIM and CAM programs would do for modern education what Kittyhawk did for powered flight. But they never really got off the ground.

Rather than keep struggling, Superintendent of Public Instruction Susan Castillo said earlier this month that it’s time to find a different vehicle. She made her announcement in a Thursday interview with The Oregonian and the next day (December 9) in a speech to the Portland City Club.

“… I am here to tell you now that I believe the time has come to move beyond the CIM and the CAM,” she told the City Club lunch crowd. But she was quick to add, “I’m not talking about abandoning what those certificates have been about, which is high standards, strong accountability for student performance and creating a relevant learning experience that connects students with the workplace and the community.”

She noted that the State Board of Higher Education “has launched an exhaustive review of high school graduation requirements, standards, assessments, and credentials. Because CIM and CAM have been about reaching high standards of achievement and making learning more relevant, we will want to hang onto the parts of those efforts that have been helpful to students…

“So my goal in working with the state board is that we’re going to take everything that we’ve learned — what works and what doesn’t — and build a system that works better for everyone and lifts student achievement.”

She could have had Sisters in mind when she also said, “I want to take a moment for all of us to applaud those districts and schools that have embraced CIM/CAM and have created nationally recognized educational experiences for their students.”

Whereas only 30 percent of 2005 Oregon high school graduates earned a CIM (Certificate of Initial Mastery), the proportion in Sisters was 67 percent. This district has long placed great emphasis on the CIM and has urged all students to try for its attainment. It can be earned as early as the 10th grade.

The CIM and the CAM (Certificate of Advanced Mastery) were both part of a comprehensive school reform package adopted by the 1991 Legislature. Both have gone through various iterations in attempts at implementation. To earn a CIM, a student must pass state tests in reading, math and science and successfully complete work samples, classroom assignments that create a kind of portfolio.

Sisters Middle School Principal Lora Nordquist, who is also the district’s curriculum coordinator, had a mixed reaction to Castillo’s move. “I’m disappointed,” she told The Nugget, “because we are one of those districts that really have bought into the CIM and we have a high percentage of students meeting CIM requirements. We take it very seriously.” (See related story on the CAM on page 28.)

At the same time, she was not critical of Castillo. “Given where we are right now I think I probably agree with what Castillo is doing, even though I support the CIM…After this many years to have as little buy-in as we have (across the state) I think she’s right to call it quits. The Oregon Department of Education has tried and tried to make districts believe in it. But after this much time, it hasn’t worked, people don’t really understand it. So it probably is time to give up the ghost.”

Nordquist doesn’t have any doubt that CIM and CAM are dead, even though technically they are embedded in laws that can be changed only by the Legislature. “When you have the primary voice in education in Oregon saying you need to kill it, it’s dead,” she said.

Nordquist said the testing and assessment parts of CIM will continue even if the name is dropped because those tests are now required by federal law, mainly the No Child Left Behind Act. But the assessments have no direct consequences for students, no penalties for failure or rewards for success. Only schools face sanctions if one or more groups of students fails to meet proficiency standards.

The other main difference Nordquist sees in the future is that many schools may drop the local work samples required for a CIM.

“We have writing, speaking and math problem solving and scientific inquiry,” four kinds of CIM work samples, she explained. She believes these are “the best examples of truly authentic assessment” available in high school, better than course grades. Their value is that they relate directly to current classroom study, to things the students are doing at the moment.

“I love those work samples and I have been impatient with teachers who say they area a waste of time,” Nordquist said, although she acknowledged that the record-keeping part of the job has been “a little complicated” and time consuming.

“I suspect the local work samples will go away (in many schools),” she said.

But not here.

“We will continue to do them. We’ve always assigned speeches and writing assignments and things like that, but some schools didn’t as much as they should have. CIM pushed them to do it.”

Overall, she does not believe the loss of CIM “will fundamentally change anything that is happening in Sisters School District in terms of holding students to standards.”