Magical thinking in California
Number 2 Pencil
In California, as in Arizona, there are those legislators who don't really want exit exams to be, you know, exit exams (registration required):
With the moment of truth fast approaching for California students, a high-powered drive has begun in the Legislature to delay or eliminate tying high school graduation to passing a controversial exit examination. Beginning with the class of 2006, state law requires high schools to deny diplomas to any student who doesn't pass a mathematics and English test, a consequence that was delayed two years ago to give schools more time to prepare.
Three guesses as to what political party the new procrastinators claim, and the first two don't count.
Two new bills, proposed by Democrats, take separate approaches to the issue. But both question the fairness of the high school exit examination and neither would allow imposition of high-stakes consequences next year. Perata and Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, argue that some campuses have been shortchanging children for years, providing inadequate instruction or textbooks. To deny diplomas to students at deficient schools would essentially victimize them twice, they contend.
This kind of thinking fascinates me. How is giving someone a worthless diploma doing them any good whatsoever? Why are these lawmakers convinced that if kids have been shortchanged for years, making sure they receive this piece of paper - without demonstrating the skills that lay behind it - will somehow rectify the situation?
It's a piece of paper, not a magic wand. The exit exam, though, certainly has some magic in it, because the exam allows California to see just how badly their schools are failing the students. If the lawmakers mentioned here care so much about drawing attention to how bad the schools are, you'd think they'd support this exam. Without it, how is anyone really supposed to know how bad things are?
sacbee.com
School exit exam put to test
Bills aim to end or alter '06 graduation requirement.
By Jim Sanders -- Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, March 3, 2005
With the moment of truth fast approaching for California students, a high-powered drive has begun in the Legislature to delay or eliminate tying high school graduation to passing a controversial exit examination.
Beginning with the class of 2006, state law requires high schools to deny diplomas to any student who doesn't pass a mathematics and English test, a consequence that was delayed two years ago to give schools more time to prepare.
Two new bills, proposed by Democrats, take separate approaches to the issue. But both question the fairness of the high school exit examination and neither would allow imposition of high-stakes consequences next year.
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, chairwoman of the Assembly Education Committee, are among legislators who support intervention on behalf of 12th-graders who fail the test next year.
Perata and Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, argue that some campuses have been shortchanging children for years, providing inadequate instruction or textbooks. To deny diplomas to students at deficient schools would essentially victimize them twice, they contend.
"A test is a very cheap way to get by," said Perata, D-Oakland. "We don't invest enough money in our educational system. We don't provide enough resources. We've only recently begun to align curriculum with the test. And all of a sudden the test becomes sacred?"
Perata predicted the Senate would pass an intervention measure.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger supports the high-stakes exam, which requires graduates to know math at about the seventh-grade level and English-language arts at roughly the 10th-grade level.
Richard Riordan, Schwarzenegger's secretary for education, declined to comment specifically on the pending legislation but said it's "high time" to hold schools accountable for failure.
"The kids ought to know (when) they don't have the tools to compete adequately in life. Their parents ought to know. And they ought to be ... mad about it," he said.
Public hearings have not yet been held on the two pending bills - SB 517 by Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles; and AB 1531 by Democratic Assemblywoman Karen Bass, also of Los Angeles. Both proposals are loosely worded, expressing intent but anticipating substantial amendments.
Romero's bill would postpone imposition of the requirement that no diploma be given to a student who fails to pass the exit exam. The delay would last until the state provides "adequate resources" for public schools and the exit exam is deemed by independent experts to meet "ethical standards."
SB 517 would require the state to receive and consider recommendations by the Quality Education Commission, created by the Legislature in 2002 to determine the cost of adequately educating students. The commission has never met because Schwarzenegger has appointed no members.
Bass' proposal, AB 1531, is meant to eliminate the test's high-stakes consequences, not merely delay them. She wants diplomas to be based on "multiple measures," not a single test score.
AB 1531 does not specify additional graduation criteria but asks the state Board of Education to make recommendations by next February.
Bass said some students who fail the exit exam may simply suffer from test anxiety. An all-or-nothing exam disregards other measures of student achievement, such as passing courses or completing research projects, she said.
"With the high school exit exam, you go through 12 years of classes and everything rests on that one thing," Bass said.
When all members of the class of 2006 took the test early last year, three of every four students passed the English portion and a similar percentage passed the math section.
The numbers were lower, however, for English learners and for African American and Latino students.
State schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell, a Democrat and former senator who proposed the exit exam in 1999, does not favor lowering the stakes, except perhaps for students with disabilities.
"I think we've given students ample notification, ample opportunity to learn," he said. "We've postponed it once already. I think to do so again would send the wrong signal to schools."
Supporters of the exit exam note that students begin taking the test in the 10th grade, so they have plenty of time to remedy their weaknesses and get a passing score before graduation.
But Goldberg said the state's recent settlement of the highly publicized Williams lawsuit is a concession that California has shortchanged students in many low-income communities.
The Williams suit claimed that schools for many of the state's most disadvantaged students were run-down or poorly equipped. The state agreed to pay nearly $1 billion to fix the problems.
"Whose fault is it that a kid can't pass an exit exam?" Goldberg said of the exit exam. "I want to hold the adults accountable first."
Romero said the test's high stakes could have serious unintended consequences, creating a permanent underclass of students - largely minority or disadvantaged - who have no diploma and little hope for the future.
Maria Lopez, a spokeswoman for the Sacramento City Unified School District, said the district has not seen the bills but is wary of changing the exit exam.
"We've asked kids to invest their attention in the test, and teachers to invest their time preparing for it," Lopez said. "To say, 'We're sorry, we don't really mean it this time,' is not a good message to send."
California education groups are split on whether to intervene in the exit examination dispute.
The California Teachers Association declined comment pending analyses of SB 517 and AB 1531.
Brian Lewis, executive director of the California Association of School Business Officials, said the exit exam is an example of escalating pressures. Schools face higher expectations, inadequate funding and threats of punishment for low scores, he said.
"You ask yourself whether this is the year when it's all going to come to a head," he said.
Bob Wells, executive director of the Association of California School Administrators, said his group is concerned about the number of students who might fail the exit exam next year but that "another delay would be deadly" for schools.
"We think the more appropriate thing is to leave the high stakes in place, but probably come up with an alternative certificate - a certificate of completion or something" that would give credit to students who pass their classes but fail the test, he said.
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