Educational Reform

Due to lack of response from the educational community to the proposed endorsed diplomas and educational warranties we have instructed the South Dakota "Department of Elementary and Secondary Education" (DESE) to design a new comprehensive test to be given to all students beginning in the second grade. They will have to pass it to graduate. It will be called the "Functional Arithmetic and Reading Test" (FART).

All students who cannot pass a FART in the second grade will be retested in grades 3, 4, and 5 until such time they are capable of achieving a FART score of 80 percent. If a student does not successfully pass a FART by grade 4, he/she will be placed in a separate English program, the "Special Mastery Elective for Learning Language" (SMELL). If, with the enhanced SMELL program, he/she cannot pass the required FART, he/she can still graduate to middle school by taking a semester course in "Comprehensive Reading and Arithmetic Preparation" (CRAP).

If by age 14 he/she cannot pass a FART, SMELL, or CRAP he/she will earn his/her promotion in an intensive one week seminar, "Preparatory Reading for the Unprepared Nationally Exempted Student" (PRUNES). It is the opinion of the Board that an intensive week of PRUNES will enable the student to FART, SMELL, and CRAP.

We hope this memo clears the air.

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