Students might get reprieve
Thousands who failed tests could still get diplomas
George Watson, Staff Writer
sbsun.com
· California High School Exit Exam: How it works
Thousands of high school seniors, both locally and throughout the state, could receive diplomas if a Superior Court judge's tentative ruling holds up.
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman had issued his tentative ruling Monday night. He sided with plaintiffs who claimed the exam is discriminatory because California failed to provide an equal education to every student.
On Tuesday, the Attorney General's Office argued in court that Freedman's plan to prohibit California's high school exit exam from taking effect this year should apply only to the students who filed the lawsuit, not the thousands who failed the exams.
During a hearing on the matter Tuesday, Freedman said he would issue his final ruling Friday. In the meantime, he gave the state's lawyers time to file arguments about which students should be covered by his decision.
He is considering granting a waiver for this year's seniors, the first class required to pass the test to receive a diploma.
School administrators throughout the Inland Empire have been waiting to see whether Freedman's tentative ruling would stand, given the strong objections from such state leaders as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
If the exit exam requirements are tossed, it would mean up to 670 more students at the Ontario-based Chaffey Joint Union High School District could graduate.
District officials say they could easily accommodate the new graduates. This is true, officials said, even though the district is one of the few that was not letting students participate in their graduations if they had failed the exit exams.
"From a planning standpoint, it's not a big deal," said Jeff Ellingsen, director of assessment and research. "What becomes problematic is, here we go again."
For years, state and local officials have tried to require students to pass exit exams in math and English to test their proficiency and each district's success in educating them. Delays have run rampant, Ellingsen said.
"It makes us look foolish," he said. "It's not fair to us, it's not fair to the kids, and it's not fair to public schools as a whole."
Administrators at the San Bernardino City Unified School District will adhere to whatever the judge decides, said spokeswoman Linda Hill.
The exit exams have added a level of rigor to a student's education but in a positive way, Hill said.
Still, Hill said, it might make some sense to find ways to test students in a multitude of ways so that all of the pressure of graduating is not on one set of tests.
"All students are different they learn in different styles," Hill said.
Throughout the state, about 47,000 seniors have not passed both the English and math sections. In a typical year, about 50,000 seniors fail to graduate for various reasons.
The suit stems from a group of high school students and their parents who sued the state Department of Education in February seeking a preliminary injunction to halt application of the exam for this year's senior class.
On Tuesday, attorneys for four of the students requested they be withdrawn from the lawsuit because the students have since passed the math portion of the exam. The judge took that request under advisement. The remaining six students are classified as English-learners.
"The remaining students are struggling with the English. Is it because they haven't been taught? Is it because there's a lack of curricular alignment? Your honor, the answer is clearly no," Douglas Press, supervising deputy attorney general for California, told the judge. "These students simply lack English-language proficiency again, not because they weren't taught."
He said several of the plaintiff students had been in the United States for only a few years.
Freedman explained his decision by saying the harm to students who do not receive their diplomas is serious. Meanwhile, the effect on the state is negligible if it is required to grant diplomas to all students who otherwise meet the requirements this year, he said.
"We have a serious problem in the state of California with respect to the distribution of our teachers. ... We have a severe shortage of credentialed teachers, especially in minority communities and in low-income communities," said Arturo Gonzalez, the lead plaintiff attorney.
Because of that, Gonzalez argued, his clients and other students who have failed the test did not have equal opportunity and were not taught the material on the exit exam.
After Freedman issued his tentative ruling on Monday, Jack O'Connell, state superintendent of public instruction, said he would appeal any ruling blocking the exam's implementation. He called the test "a cornerstone of California's school accountability system."
O'Connell wrote the 1999 legislation that enacted the test. Schwarzenegger also is a supporter of the exam and criticized Freedman's tentative ruling when it was made public Monday night.
The governor said the test was the state's best tool to measure school performance and that delaying its consequences "does a disservice to our children."
California's exam tests 10th-grade English, ninth-grade math and level-one algebra. Students need to answer 60 percent of the questions correctly to pass each section.
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