The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 19

section News of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware ft Sunday, July 11, 1982 3ffte jffulaiielpltrc Inquirer metropolitan By DOROTIIY STORCK Student progress disputed Testing scores called overrated Welcome to Bobbie's world First of two parts Her name is Bobbie. She is small with long black hair and large blue eyes. She is wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt with the word "must cian" printed across the front. She composes rock lyrics. She has studied acting.

In college she ma jored in French literature. She can do crossword puzzles in ink. For a few years she lived in New York City and made her accommoda tions with that. Now she's back home in Philadelphia. At the moment she's driving a cab.

By Vernon Loeb Inquirer Stall Writer Several key local education officials say that recent achievement test results do not show that children in the Philadelphia school system are doing nearly as well as Michael P. Marcase announced when he stepped down as school superintendent last month. The officials including some school board members, testing experts and public school activists say that Marcase overstated the positive and played down the negative in interpreting California Achievement Test (CAT) scores he announced in June. The officials say the test results show conclusively that large segments of the city's school students still have severe learning problems. "No decent person can take any satisfaction from these scores," school board member Herman Mat-tleman said in an interview.

When the test scores were released to the public at a school board meeting June 21, Marcase announced in one of his last acts as superintendent This is her second night out on the job, The first night, which was really a training night, she drove hours, picked up two fares 'one stiffed her and one offered her a Special to The Inquirer MARK SHERMAN drink of bourbon as a tip and bare ly made it back to the Yellow Cab Co, garage at 31st Street and Gray's Ferry Avenue because the taxi's generator conked out. Then she discovered she owed the company $4... She had a few words to say about that at the dispatch window in the cinderblock hall where the drivers line up to wait, often for hours, for OSPREYS, which once numbered 500 before being nearly wiped out, total about 180 today at special sites; as part of the protection program, bands, at right, are attached to the chicks' legs to monitor their migratory and reproductive habits. In KJ. marsh lands, helping endangered species thrive again their vehicles.

The window has sign on the front of it that reads, "No profanity, please." The face of the man behind the window is stoic. A 10-hour shift This night 1 am riding with Bobbie No doubt because I am there, she is assigned a cab right away, at 4:30 in the afternoon, for a 10-hour shift. The men in line, some of whom have been waiting there for two hours. lr- iir learn iimi iifn rem in ntmiimum grumble, then grin. "Aw, that's cool if it's for a newspa per story," says a young guy who is holding a paperback, Politics oj Pal estinian Nationalism.

We get our cab, number 840. Num ber 840 leans on its haunches like a wino at midnight. It has a slight list to the left. Iriside, the wires trail on the floor from the call radio. The glove com partment door flaps open at the least jolt, The knobs on the door handles are gone.

There arc no inside lights, no air conditioning. The gas gauge is Mv" ft broken. "You got plenty of gas," the garage man says. "Cab just came out of the Bobbie and 1 and number 840 clunk out of the yard. She is optimistic.

By David O'Reilly Inquirer Stall Writer AVALON, N.J. The hot, still air of Great Sound turned cool and breezy as Warren Kell's aluminum motorboat picked up speed and threaded through the canals of this vast green marsh. A mile away, the elegant summer homes of Cape May County that crowd the shores of the marsh shimmered in the afternoon heat, but Kelt's blue eyes were fixed on the six-foot wooden platform that stood in a nearby marsh field. Perched in the nest atop the platform, glaring back at him, were four osprcys, silhouetted against the sky. The osprey, or fish hawk, is an endangered species in New Jersey.

Kell, 25, an assistant biologist for the Endangered and Nongame Species Project of the state's Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife, was guiding his 15-horse-power outboard through Avalon Bay on a hot afternoon last week to band the legs of the three chicks hatched in the nest a month ago. The numbered aluminum bands will be used to monitor the birds' migratory and reproductive habits. "Here we go," he said, and cut the engine as the bow of his boat bumped gently into the muddy bank of the marsh field. At that moment, 100 feet away, the largest of the ospreys let out a sharp "creee!" and, heaving its giant wings, rose out of the nest. Again the air was hot and still.

Dragonflies darted above the knee-high marsh grass, which produced a wet crunching sound underfoot as two intruders approached the nest, lugging an aluminum ladder. "Creee!" cried the osprey again as it circled clockwise around the sun, flapping its crooked, mottled wings, with their five-foot span, trying desperately to scare the intruders away. "It doesn't shimmy," she says. "It even has an ashfray." After one that the school district had accomplished a goal it had sought for 14 years. He said the test results showed that Philadelphia students had reached the national test-score average on the basis of combined scores in reading, mathematics and language skills in grades one through eight scores he called "truly remarkable." 347c in trouble zone But Mattleman and others said last week that on the basis of another, more significant index of achievement reading scores for all 12 grades the district was still well below the national average.

On the basis of that index, for example, the tests showed that 34 percent of all high school seniors in Philadelphia scored below the national 16th percentile, the so-called trouble zone indicating severe achievement problems. "Thirty-four percent of high school seniors arc functionally illiterate," said Debra Weiner, director of the Council for Educational Priorities, a citywide coalition of activist groups interested in public education. "If that was the national norm, we'd all be swinging from trees." Marcase said in an interview Friday that he did not misrepresent the test scores in any way. He conceded that serious problems remained among high school students, but he said that the dramatic gains scored this year by students in the lower grades were extremely satisfying and showed steady progress on the part of the district. He attributed the increases to "momentum and a concentration on the basics." "When you keep pounding away at something year after year, you see a breakthrough and more achievement than you've had in the past," he said.

Interpretation at issue But the dispute goes far beyond this year's CAT scores, and has researchers and officials divided over much larger issues issues concerning the use and abuse of standardized achievement tests and the kind of conclusions that can be reached on the basis of test scores. For example, like other educators across the nation, Marcase offered a specific reason why some test scores had risen this year. In announcing the test results shortly before his retirement July 1, Marcase said they "graphically demonstrate the intensity with which teachers and pupils returned to the business of education" after last fall's 50-day teachers strike. But Michael Kean, Midwest regional director for the Educational Testing Service and the Philadelphia School District's research director from 1973 to 1981, cautioned against such conclusions. Kean said it was impossible for researchers to conclude with any degree of accuracy what was responsible for increases (See TEST on 7-B) Kell holding an osprey chick at one of the bird platforms in the marsh not hatch healthy offspring.

According to a spokesman for state Department of Environmental Protection, however, DDT use in the wetlands was halted in 1968, and in 1970 state legislation was enacted restricting wetlands development. And, beginning in 1974, the first man-made osprey (See OSPREYS on 8-B) Until the 1950s, 500 ospreys nested in the state, primarily in coastal wetlands. But by the early 1970s, according to state wildlife officials, their number was reduced to 50 as a result of residential development in osprey habitats, and because of the use of the pesticide DDT and its derivatives, which produced eggs so thin and fragile they could night's cab driving, she is grateful for small favors. 800 cabs operating An explanation is appropriate here. The new owners of the Yellow Cab Co.

took it over last January. They have 800 cabs on the street now, which is more than anyone has put there in years. They say they are replacing the clunkers as fast as they can afford to. The old owners of Yellow Cab were not, let it be said, totally dedicated to streamlining the company. There are 650 drivers now, 30 of them women.

A driver leases a cab for a 10-hour shift, at S37.S0, plus S2 union dues, plus the cost of gas. After that, anything he makes he takes home, including all tips. According to company officials, an average driver nets between S3 and S6 an hour, after expenses. There is no medical insurance, except $4,000 tops if you're maimed in an accident. As Bobbie points out, "Enough to bury you." "Robberies," says one company official, "are a fact of life." He says there are maybe four holdups a week.

He says this is not very many if you consider there are perhaps a thousand shifts on the street each day. He says the company discourages the drivers from carrying guns. You find yourself thinking a lot about those four holdups as the dark settles in on old 840. You remember asking, too, if there have been any, uh, problems involving attacks on women drivers, particularly on the night shifts. By L.

Stuart Ditzen Inquirer Stall Writer "We think it's a humane strike. We think it may be the only humane strike in the history of the labor movement," said Henry Nicholas. The strike would be aimed at 13 conference attended by about 300 people, said he also had received reports that some hospitals were requiring deposits from uninsured patients before providing them with non-emergency service. Hospitals where strike votes have been approved, Nicholas said, arc Temple University Health Sciences Center, Albert Einstein Medical Center's Daroff Division, Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital, and the Medical College of Employees, said yesterday that union members at four Philadelphia hospitals already had agreed to strike. Votes have not yet been taken at nine other hospitals.

The threatened strike does not bear directly on wage negotiations for the union's Philadelphia District Council 1199C, of which Nicholas is president, too. In fact, a 9 percent wage increase goes into effect this month for members of 1199C. But federal cutbacks in health-care spending have forced layoffs of some hospital workers. There is no provision banning layoffs in 1199C's contract with city hospitals. When Nicholas addressed a conference on "Health Care in Crisis" yesterday at the headquarters of 1199C at 1319 Locust he acknowledged an element of "self interest" for union members in the present strike threat.

But in the main, he said, the call to strike springs from a sense of "social responsibility." Philadelphia Health Commissioner Dr. Stuart Shapiro, who spoke at the Philadelphia hospitals, which ac cording to Nicholas have been turn ing away Medicaid patients and oth ers too poor to pay for medical Nicholas, president of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Delay and competition threaten city's gains from cable TV Women have option The official says there haven't been. He says the women drivers have the option to drive only on the day shifts, but many of them take the nights. The day shift, it should be said, involves lining up at the garage no later than 6 a.m. is close to 5 p.m., rush hour on Friday night.

Bobbie and I take our first radio call, which turns out to be a "no show" at 26th and Wharton. We head toward the big Center City hotels. There is a convention of librarians in town, i We get our first fare at 17th and Pine, a man with a briefcase who wants to go to 2400 Chestnut Street. "I don't mind women drivers," he tells us. "Only my girlfriend." It is 5:10 p.m.

and there are more than nine hours still to go. TUESDAY: On the road. When built, she said, a cable system would create opportunities for commissioned salespersons and probably spawn a home-security business. Most large new cable systems have the capability of connecting homes to a central monitoring facility that would provide burglar-alarm services for an additional monthly fee. The cable operators also said that the effeel of a new cable industry on other serv ice industries in Philadelphia, from office water coolers to (See CABLE on 6-B) people necessary to get a system off the ground," said Michael Doyle, manager of Telesystems Cable the Times Mirror subsidiary that currently provides service to part of South Philadelphia.

The construction phase could mean another 150 to 200 jobs for a period of several years, he said. Also, the estimates do not reflect "spinoffs" and "ancillary businesses" that would be generated by a cable system here, said Barbara Lukens, vice president of market development for Comcast. The key is competition. Cable operators fear that delay until the political primary season in May as now appears likely will mean a toss of potential business to competitors such as subscription television stations. And, they say, the city should have an interest in this, because cable competitors do not pay franchise fees to the city, do not create as many local jobs and do not add as much to the property tax base.

These cable competitors use alternative means to deliver programming, such as elec tronically restricted channels, rather than cables strung to the home. The recent estimates of the employment and economic benefits to the city from cable operations were prepared by Times Mirror Cable Television and Comcast Cable Communications Co. Officials of these companies also said that the estimates should be viewed as conservative. The full impact of a mature cable system or. jobs and revenue, the cable companies said, should be great--er.

The numbers "do not include construction people and marketing By Ron Wolf Inquirer staff Writer If Philadelphia moves quickly to award its cable television franchises, the city stands to profit handsomely. But delay could be costly, recent trends in the cable industry suggest. At stake are more than 500 new full-time jobs and more than S4 million in franchise fees to the city, by recent industry estimates. But cable operators are now warning that those figures could drop should the franchise process drag on through Philadelphia government..