California 12th graders can’t graduate unless they can pass the exit exam. But many seniors who haven’t passed yet aren’t working very hard to learn the skills they need, reports the Sacramento Bee.
Juan, 18, has passed the English part of the test but not the math. You wouldn’t know it by looking at his class schedule. He’s taking English 12 - like most seniors - but is not enrolled in math.Juan has all the math credits he needs for graduation and said he didn’t want the stress of taking it again. It’s the only subject in which Juan has been placed in special education.
“I don’t know how I passed geometry and Algebra 1,” he said. “I don’t feel I learned enough to pass the California High School Exit Exam.”Many of Hiram Johnson’s struggling seniors have never done well in school but always have been promoted. They’ve gotten by with C’s and D’s. They don’t always attend class.
They’ve been pushed through before without learning skills and many think they’ll get by somehow this time.
Students get six tries to pass the test before graduation, starting as sophomores. Multiple-choice questions cover “reading and writing at a ninth-and 10th-grade level and math skills typically taught in sixth, seventh and eighth grade.” Students must get 55 percent on the math and 60 percent on the reading and writing test to pass. Blind guessing would generate a 25 percent. This generation of students has made it to 12th grade without basic skills essential to just about anything they might want to do as adults.
As someone who has taught both general ed. classes and GED classes, I can attest to the difference between teaching a class and teaching a test. I am not disparaging “teaching the test.” However, the solution is not to load students with more classes that failed them the first time. I think it would be more helpful to do intensive after-school tutoring programs that target student weakness as it relates to specific parts of the test.
> I think it would be more helpful to do
> intensive after-school tutoring programs
> that target student weakness as it
> relates to specific parts of the test.
According to the most recent California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) about 30% (over 200,000) students failed a rather simple test to prove that students exiting high school had mastered ordinary reading and math skills.
Tutoring 200,000+ students is not the answer. These kids are failing to grasp the fundamentals. Some other model of education delivery has to be developed. The CAHSEE is a very simple test.
The CA STAR tests predict this failure rate however, based on the fact that 65% of the states kids are performing at a BASIC, BELOW BASIC or FAR BELOW BASIC skill level in reading.
Until the kids can read and pass the STAR tests with a skill level of “proficient”, the CAHSEE test is meaningless.
It begins early on. I am a Middle School teacher and SST (Student Study Team) coordinator. This means I get to review the Cum files of around 100 failing students every year. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen kids recommended for retention, only to be administratively promoted. It happens to me. I recommend students be held back, and the counselors tell the administration to pass the kid on and make it the high school’s problem. Then at high school the kid falls between the cracks, or perhaps gets sent to continuation school. Nobody wants to retain these kids because they often cause discipline problems and drag down test scores.
How about the obvious fact that not everyone is academically inclined or going on to college. School districts should adopt a more European model of vocational and academic tracking early (perhaps starting in middle school). If vocational students want more academics later on, they can go back to school as an older, more mature or academically inclined student. The elitist snobs think college is somehow nobler than practical vocational training. There is nothing inherently nobler about being a psychologist or (gasp) lawyer, than a plumber or mechanic.
The exit exams should be tailored for vocational and academic curricula. Oh yes….solve the illegal immigration issue and you’ll see the bottom feeders out of the statistical analysis. ‘Nuff said.