CA High School Exit Exam - Blaming the Victims

BLAMING THE VICTIMS? STUDENTS WILL BE PUNISHED BY THE HIGH SCHOOL EXIT EXAM
EDITOR'S NOTE: John Rogers is Associate Director of the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access (IDEA), a research center at UCLA that examines key policy issues affecting equity and access within California's educational system.
BY CAROLYN GOOSSEN, PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE

Q: Why are African-American and Latino kids failing the High School Exit Exam in larger numbers than other groups?
A: African-American and Latino students are far more likely than any other group in the state to attend schools that lack qualified teachers, space and instructional materials. Take, for example, the eight high schools in South Los Angeles. More than 99 percent of the students in those high schools are African-American or Latino. More than one-third of the teachers at these schools lack a full teaching credential. Two-thirds of the math teachers are not credentialed to teach math. Because most of these schools are dramatically overcrowded, they use a year-round calendar that provides students with 17 days fewer instruction each year than other high schools in the state. And, students attending these high schools came from South Los Angeles middle schools with similar shortages of qualified teachers and overcrowding.
Q: Statistics say that 85 percent of English learners in this state are Latino students. Does this also have an impact on the results?
A: Yes, many of the Latino students who have not yet passed the exit exam are recent immigrants still learning English. Their inability to pass the exam is often a function of their taking a test in a language that they don't yet fully understand. Latinos who are fluent in English have far higher pass rates.
Q: Many see the exit exam as a way to ensure that a high school diploma means something, and that students who graduate have at least basic English and math skills. Shouldn't we have something like the exam to make sure all students have these basic skills?
A: If we want to ensure that all students can demonstrate basic skills, we need to provide all students with access to quality instruction. More fundamentally, I would argue that basic skills are not enough. What parent would be satisfied with basic academic competence as a goal? Our high school diploma should mean young people are prepared for successful futures, which requires greater investment in our schools.
...
Q: On Sept. 30, the Human Resources Research Organization -- an independent evaluator of the Exit Exam -- released the exit exam passage rates. What did the results show? And what does it mean for different groups of immigrant students?
A: This recent report confirms what we have been saying for several months: that around 100,000 students in the Class of 2006 are at risk of not graduating this spring because they have yet to pass the exit exam. The vast majority of these students are: 1) special education students; 2) immigrant students still learning English; and 3) African-American and Latino students attending schools with substandard conditions.
Denying these students diplomas will undermine the ability of many young people to move on to successful futures and will generate cynicism among young people who have not been given a fair chance to succeed. It is not too late to avoid these outcomes. California still has time to follow the report's recommendations and to create options for students who have not yet passed the exit exam.
Q: What kinds of options did the report recommend?
A: It suggested on that districts could grant students diplomas if the students successfully completed a summer program. Options such as this offer a way for the state to avoid the calamity of having perhaps 100,000 students denied a diploma.

From Pacific News Service
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/