Phila. Students Advocate Changes in Test Procedures

Unhappy with Philadelphia’s standardized-testing procedures, students from one of the city’s high schools have persuaded the district to improve test preparation and test administration for high school students districtwide.

Students at Strawberry Mansion High School who belong to Youth United For Change, a Philadelphia-based youth-organizing group, are to announce this week the changes that will take effect at all 22 of the district’s comprehensive high schools. Their work was sparked by complaints from peers in 2004 that they had to leave core subjects to attend preparation sessions for state- and district-mandated tests.

“We had to get on this issue, and we had to get on it now,” Anthony Williams, a 17-year-old senior at the school of 800 students in North Philadelphia, said last week. “If you have to get pulled out of your major-subject classes, why do you come to school then? It just takes...