March 28, 2006

Statement by Russlynn Ali on Today’s Analysis of Exit Exam Passage Rates for the Class of 2006:  The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Today’s new California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) data are as encouraging as they are dismal.  There’s good news: to be sure, most of this year’s senior class has passed.  There’s bad news too.  There remain achievement gaps separating students of color, low income students and English Language Learners from their more advantaged peers, though more of these students are passing than ever before.  But our celebration of this encouraging progress is also tempered by the knowledge that many students simply are missing from these results.  And when we consider that, the picture gets really ugly – fast. 

The Good:  

The encouraging news is that most of this year’s senior class are on track to pass, and  students’ passage rates are increasing over time.  As of November 2005, a full 89% of the class of 2006 passed. 

Before the CAHSEE, districts were not nearly as accountable for high school learning as they are now. Before the CAHSEE our elementary and middle schools had improved, but our high school achievement levels remained stagnant, and the gaps widened. Without the CAHSEE, far too many of our high school students would have been written off, as they have been for generations. Since the CAHSEE, district leaders are focusing more on the high school reform agenda than ever before. The higher levels of achievement reported today are a testament to the hard work and resolve of the educators and students who embraced the challenge, kept at it, and exceeded the standard.

The stakes —failure to receive a high school diploma ––are every bit as high as the test critics suggest. But the key here is that they are already high. The stakes for a student who graduates without the ability to master the skills tested in a minimum competency exam, even after several chances, are enormous.  There is almost no chance that such a graduate will have the skills necessary to secure a job with any meaningful career ladder, or to succeed in a two or four year college or an apprenticeship program. Before the CAHSEE, those stakes were invisible ––

except on urban and rural street corners and in unemployment lines. We couldn’t assure our graduates that they were ready for life, that they were empowered to choose either work or further education, because we didn’t know.

The CAHSEE reveals those hidden ––and enormously high ––stakes for California’s young people and it finally creates real accountability for the adults who are charged with teaching them. Are the CAHSEE data heartbreaking? Unquestionably. Are we happy to see even one California youngster denied a diploma? Of course not. But the high school diploma students receive must mean something. And the lagging achievement levels in high school must be identified and cured.  That’s starting to happen as a result of CAHSEE.    

The Bad: 

In order to pass CAHSEE, students need to answer 55% of the questions correctly in math and 60% in English. The CAHSEE tests mathematics standards from sixth and seventh grades, as well as Algebra I, and English language arts standards through tenth grade.  The standards tested are minimal – the test is actually more like a middle school exit exam than one representative of the true skills we want students to know and be able to do when they leave our high school doors.  CAHSEE gauges whether students leave high school with the absolute minimum level of skills necessary for life after high school.   

For example, one question asks students to know that 180 days is about 50% of 365 days.  The multiple choice question gave three other possible answers:  18%, 75% or 180%.  What does it say about our system that high school students –after 6 chances – don’t know the answer?  How are young people supposed to be able to calculate their monthly income if they can’t figure out how much of their gross pay goes to taxes?  That’s of course, if they could earn a wage sufficient to support a family in the first place. 

The truth is, far too many of today’s high school seniors are tragically underprepared for life after high school.  Almost one in five African-American and Latino seniors haven’t passed both sections of the test.  Conversely, almost all of their White and Asian counterparts have been successful:  96% of White students, and 94% of Asian students have passed.   The situation is far worse for our English Language Learners, a full 21,376 (31%) of students learning English in this year’s senior class haven’t passed as of last November.   

Let us be clear:  these failure rates don’t result from student’s innate ability, or lack thereof.  The public school system has failed these students, and in turn students struggle on the test.  There is a justifiable concern held by many that state resources aren’t adequate to provide both teachers and students with the support they need to make quick improvements.   The state has a responsibility to alleviate those concerns.  Funnel the resources.  Channel the interventions.  Provide necessary supports – early. 

The Ugly: 

The data released today are good estimates, but estimates nevertheless.  Because the state doesn’t have a way of tracking individual student test scores over time, we don’t have an exact accounting of passage rates.  Indeed, while there is a lot of rhetoric these days in California about “data-driven” decision making in education, it is mostly just that:  rhetoric.  California may well produce a plethora of publicly available data, but is far from creating the kind of longitudinal data system necessary to both understand clearly what happens as students journey K-16, and clearer descriptions of how schools operate.   

There’s one more administration of the test in May, but students won’t know whether they passed or not by the time they are to participate in graduation ceremonies in June. 

The gains in passage rates revealed today -- for all groups of students -- are indeed heartening.  But these are the students that make it to senior year.  We have long known that a lot of students drop out of high school in California – that’s a problem that pre-dates the CAHSEE. But we must be sure that we don’t report increasing pass rates as a result of fewer students. The state taking responsibility for every high school graduate being taught up to state standards implies a responsibility to know how many high school students have dropped out along the way, and it is long past time for California to implement the student-level data system that will include all students in the cohort’s pass rate.

It is shameful that for the sixth largest economy in the world, and after tens of millions have been spent in data collection, that we don’t have a comprehensive data system that tells the truth about our schools.  It is embarrassing that school leaders, parents and our young people don’t know with precision the impact CAHSEE will have on their lives come June.  And it is plain scandalous that our state leaders are scrambling to figure this all out now.   

About the Education Trust-WestThe Education Trust—West is the West Coast partner of the national policy organization the Education Trust.  The organization works for the high academic achievement of all students at all levels, kindergarten through college with an emphasis on serving low-income, Latino, African-American and Native American students.  The Education Trust—West works alongside policymakers, parents, education professionals, and business and community leaders, in cities and towns throughout California, who are trying to transform their schools and colleges into institutions that genuinely serve all students.  To learn more about the Education Trust—West, visit www.edtrustwest.org.

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