From the July 8th Mercury News (OK, so I'm a little behind here) - Exit Exam Likely to Be Postponed For Two Years:
California's high school seniors have been told since they were in eighth grade that they would be the first class to have to pass an exit exam to get a diploma. Now, the State Board of Education appears poised to deliver a revised message: You're off the hook.
The board is expected to vote Wednesday to delay enforcing the high school exit exam requirement for at least two years. It is a move welcomed by some educators who want more time to get students ready to tackle the test but is seen by others as a setback in the state's aggressive push to establish stricter academic standards.
On July 9th, the board did indeed vote - unanimously - to delay the exit exam for two years. Seems they haven't quite figured out how to best tackle the high failure rate which indicates that California's high schools aren't doing as good a job as they should:
Under legislation passed in 1999, the Class of 2004 -- which had 428,117 students enrolled statewide as of October -- was supposed to be the first that would have to pass the exam to graduate. Students can take the test up to eight times during their high school years.
But as of January, only 62 percent of students in the Class of 2004 had passed the math section of the exam, which covers algebra as well as some statistics, geometry and probability. Eighty-one percent had passed the English language arts section
That's just a little over half of the students passing the math section, on an exam that allows eight tries. And the board thinks this situation will be rectified within two years? I'm beginning to think that the board might have wanted more information about how their students are doing when they instituted this exam, but they didn't want, or expect, this stunning truth about the students' poor performance.
The letters to the editor have begun arriving at the Merc (see here as well) - and some are from students opposed to the delay:
California is one of the lowest ranking states in terms of education -- and now the state has given students a break and will let us take it easy. The state should pressure students to work hard to pass the test.
California is already one of the weakest states in the nation in terms of education. With the likely postponement of the high school exit exam (Page 1A, July 8), this view will be reinforced. There is no reason to delay this graduation requirement. I am a student at Andrew Hill High School and a member of the Class of 2004. When I took the exit exam, I found it to be simple. Its level of difficulty pales in comparison to the SAT, or even to the standardized tests proctored by the state each year.
Would I be rude to suggest that perhaps the students who are in favor of dropping the exam, which measures skills at the 10th-grade level, are perhaps not literate enough to write letters to the Merc supporting the board's decision? Yes, that would be rude. Forget I said anything.
Another reader, in fact, suggests dumbing the test down even more, although she defines it as "aligning the test" with the real world:
As long as the state Board of Education is postponing the high school exit exam, it should rewrite it to test only skills needed for survival in the real world, and eliminate the college-prep questions...
The current exam asks students to read a passage and analyze what the writer was feeling when he wrote it. The board should rewrite the exam with real-world problems such as these:
Given the prices, which is cheaper -- one 28-ounce bottle of ketchup or two 14-ounce bottles? Given a bus map and schedule, when and where should you wait for the bus? Given the descriptions of three different car loans, which offers the better deal? Given a blank job application form, fill it out.
Educrats already scream that our tests only measure basic skills, and fail to measure the much-touted "higher-order thinking" and such intangibles as creativity and intuition. Can you imagine the outcry if the board operationalized an exit exam that as much as admitted that California's students are incapable of understanding literature, art, science, and higher maths, and can only be trained to get through life's daily errands? If "teaching to the test" is such a concern when the test measures basic educational skills, I shudder to think of the backlash that would occur if the test measured only basic life coping skills.
The Merc had this to say about the board's decision:
...It's a wise move for the state board of education, as it's expected to do today, to delay imposing that graduation requirement for two years.
First, not all schools offered the appropriate classes and subjects because state content standards weren't in place early enough. Second, the state was likely facing a costly lawsuit had it forced unprepared students to pass the test.
So the state shouldn't do anything that might generate a lawsuit, even if the lawsuit is filed for the wrong reasons? And is two years really enough time to put the content standards in place? The legislation dictating that the Class of '04 should pass the exit exam was passed in 1999. If five years hasn't been enough to get everyone ready, will another two really make a difference? And does the board have any suggestions as to how the schools should fix things in two years that they couldn't fix in twice that amount of time?
Surely the board is aware that they will be sued, regardless, by the parents of some students who feel they deserve to pass, but don't. Given that some students will always fail, unless the test is dumbed down beyond all recognition, fear of lawsuits shouldn't be a legitimate reason for postponement. If anything, I feel that the the board's unwillingness to defend the test for use this year will make the test more susceptible to lawsuits in the future, not less.
As one superintendent aptly puts it:
"This is a giant PR mess," said Bill Kugler, deputy superintendent in the East Side Union High School District in San Jose. "We have been telling kids since they entered high school: 'You are the ones and you need to be ready.' Now we have to say, 'You don't have to do that.' It's a credibility problem."
Indeed.