Par for the course
What happens when schools create exit exams? Not every student passes them. The reasons for this are varied, but most likely it's some combination of misfit between class curricula and test items (the schools aren't teaching what they're testing), and good ol' student incompetence. Not everyone is smart enough to earn a high school diploma, and declaring such a statement to be politically incorrect doesn't change the reality of it.
What really ticks me off about high school exit exams is that school districts that implement them refuse to stand behind the results. I posted earlier today about Massachusett's wimpy "certificate of achievement" for students who can't pass the MCAS, and now I just discovered through Joanne Jacobs that because only 30% of Washington State's 10th-graders passed the all four sections of the exit exam, school administrators are scrambling for ways to make the test easier. The administrators in questions aren't shy about admitting that the entire revision process is just a means to avoid legal action:
"We will get sued," state Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson predicted recently. "I want to win the lawsuit -- and I want to be fair to kids." Bergeson proposed several significant modifications to the grad test in her annual State of Education address on Nov. 15 in Spokane, including scoring adjustments, opportunities for retaking the test and alternative paths to a diploma for students who can't clear the WASL bar. She acknowledged that the issue of changing the test at all is ripe for controversy, which likely will heat up as the 2008 effective date nears.
Business leaders fear that educational standards will be weakened, while unionized teachers oppose a high-stakes test of any kind as a sine qua non for graduation.
Somehow, I'd have more faith in an administrator who was willing to brave lawsuits in order to be fair to kids, rather than cave in to demands and blame the messenger - the tests - when the kids have a miserable pass rate. Joanne's comments on the matter are particularly good.
Regular readers will know I'm no fan of exit exams. But schools that are serious about them should stand behind the results and refuse to dumb down the exams. A miserable passing rate may very well be a sign that a school's curriculum is not useful, and all this legal wrangling about what's fair to everyone tends to obscure the fact that these tests give us important information.