CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“EXIT EXAM DEMISE CHEAPENS HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION"
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“EXIT EXAM DEMISE CHEAPENS HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION"
The single easiest bill for California
legislators to pass this year probably was Senate Bill 725, giving about 5,000
high school students the ability to graduate without taking the state’s high
school exit exam, which suddenly became unavailable when they tried to take it
in July.
But then the lawmakers went much
further and, with approval from the quixotic Gov. Jerry Brown, effectively
nullified everything the exit exam had accomplished since 2006.
Failure to pass the exit test since
that time had meant not merely an inability to graduate, but also could cancel
previously-arranged college admissions and some military enlistments. By being
so definitive, it also let employers and others know that a California high
school graduate would have certain knowledge and skills.
Legislators clearly could not let 5,000
kids no longer able to access the exam be stranded, plainly justifying their
votes of 37-0 in the state Senate and 77-1 in the Assembly to grant those
students a reprieve.
But there was no reprieve for the exit
exam, suspended since state education officials declined to renew a
contract that expired in May with the firm that formerly administered the test.
Their reason: The exit exam did not
conform in its math and language arts sections to the Common Core curriculum
now being taught in public schools.
Somehow, that didn’t keep the vast
majority of high schoolers from passing it. The pass rate last year was just
over 95 percent, with many students taking the test as early as their sophomore
year. Why has it been so easy? One reason might be that the exit exam’s math
section covered mostly sixth- and seventh-grade material, while the English
portion reached only the 10th-grade level.
The rationale for discarding all
results of the exit exam since 2006 and allowing diplomas to everyone who
failed it but met other graduation requirements was that it did not test
according to the new Common Core standards. So what? Common Core did not apply
in those years, and the vast majority of students passed the test.
One newspaper then featured a
happy-talk story about a young woman who failed the math portion of the exam
repeatedly, but suddenly became a high school graduate and thus eligible to
pursue a registered nurse degree. Would you want someone unable to do seventh
grade math calculating fractional drug dosages your doctor might prescribe for
you?
The exit exam actually filled its main
purpose most of the time it existed, as the story of the putative nurse
illustrates. That purpose was as a kind of certification that any high school
graduate in the state could safely be assumed to know things no one had been
sure of during the era of social promotion that preceded its adoption in 2005.
Now that Common Core has made changes
in basic curriculum, legislators easily passed a bill by Democratic state Sen.
Carol Liu of La Canada-Flintridge suspending the exit exam requirement until
2019.
Between now and then, educators are
supposed to develop a new test. Its nature is still unknown, but a 2013 report
by state Schools Supt. Tom Torlakson might offer some clues. He suggested some
“alternatives” to the then-in-force exit exam.
One would eliminate the exit test as a
stand-alone graduation requirement and use results of the Smarter Balanced
assessments – computerized tests aligned with Common Core – to determine
readiness for graduation. The state Education Department bills them as the “new
generation” of student proficiency assessments.
Another was to use Smarter Balanced
tests together with results of voluntary exams like the SAT college admissions
test to tell whether students are worthy of graduation. The trouble with that
is that it's usually only college-bound students who take the voluntary tests.
Torlakson also said successful
completion of certain courses could determine whether students meet graduation
requirements. That could be a lot like life before the exit exam.
The ultimate outcome will likely be an
exit exam of some kind, since legislators like state Senate Republican leader
Robert Huff are on record saying “Without an exit exam, we will return to the
days (of no) guarantee of minimum mathematics and language arts competency. We
can’t let that happen to California students.”
So it’s highly uncertain what the new
graduation standards will look like.
Meanwhile, the anxiety, efforts and
accomplishment of more than 2 million students who passed the test since 2006
are now rendered essentially meaningless.
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net