School leaders consider extra help for students who fail exit exams

The class of 2006 is the first one to have its diploma hinge on passing the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE). The vast majority, or 78 percent, of seniors have already done so, either when they took the test as sophomores or when they tried again as juniors.

The other 22 percent have three more chances this year to take the test. If they fail to pass, they will not be eligible to receive a high school diploma.

States and school districts across the nation are rethinking exit exams and providing more help to students to ensure that they can pass the tests and graduate from high school.

In California, the state education department provided educators with a study guide for every 10th grader and has earmarked an additional $20 million in its budget for school districts to provide mandatory remedial help to struggling 12th graders.

The money will only be available to districts with large numbers of seniors who have not yet passed the CAHSEE.

About 16 percent of seniors in the Anaheim Union High School District have yet to pass the exam, and the district will receive $145,000 in state aid, which will be used for instructional materials, tutoring, and extra help for special education students and English language learners (ELLs).  

Assistant Superintendent for Education Tracy Brennan doesn’t think the CAHSEE is fair, but says, “My major goal -- no matter what I think of the test -- is to provide every one of our students with the appropriate curriculum knowledge to pass.” 

Brennan points out that students who don’t pass the exam can still go to a community college and earn a community college diploma. “This is a terrible loophole and I’m afraid I’m going to see a mass exit. I think the rules need to be the same for everyone, including community colleges.”

“Academics need to be the focus,” she agrees, “but high school is more than academics  -- it’s social skills, making life-long friends, working as a team, recognizing authority; it’s a whole learning process.”

“I have kids that are panicked,” Brennan says. “Can you imagine being a senior and having gone all through high school, passing all your courses, and having this level of anxiety because you’re not sure if you’re going to pass a state test in six tries?”

“That’s the group of students we are most worried about,” says Holly Jacobson, assistant executive director of the California School Boards Association. “While we support the content of the exit exam and believe it’s appropriate for every student to master,” CSBA believes there should be ways for students who have passed all the other graduation requirements to demonstrate mastery of content other than through a single exam.

In early October, Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dashed the hopes of thousands of students when he vetoed a bill that would have permitted students to satisfy the English or math portion of the test by passing an alternative performance assessment offered by a school district and approved by the state department of public instruction.

Schwarzenegger also vetoed another bill that would have given students with disabilities in the classes of 2006 and 2007 a conditional exemption from the CAHSEE requirements. 

Without passage of those bills, school districts can’t do much about students who fail the exit exam but meet all the other requirements for a high school diploma.

Jacobson says, “The one thing districts are contemplating now is whether to give students a certificate of completion that kids might use to demonstrate that they had completed all of the graduation requirements at the local level but simply hadn’t passed the exit exam.”

“School districts need to make sure that they are doing everything they can to provide intervention and support to students who have failed the exit exam,” she says. “Districts must make sure -- whether they received extra money from the state or not -- that these kids are getting all the remediation and intervention” they need “to master the content.”

In Georgia, a proposal was introduced earlier this month to ease the state’s exit exam requirements. Under current law, students must pass all five sections of the state’s exit exam to receive a diploma.

Legislation that is expected to come up for a vote in November would allow students to apply for a waiver if they tried to pass the test at least four times and missed by only a few points, completed a structured tutoring class after each attempt, passed at least three of the five sections, met all graduation course requirements, have a 90 percent attendance rate, and have passed an end-of-the-course test for each of their high school courses.

“Without undermining standards, the new guidelines should help students -- many with learning disabilities or language barriers -- with borderline scores who previously have been told just to keep trying,” Deputy State Superintendent Stuart Bennett told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The board knows “a kid’s future is hanging in the balance, in some instances.”

In Washington state, Seattle and a handful of other districts changed the definition of “sophomore” to give students more time before they are required to take the state exit exam in the 10th grade. Students must pass the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) to graduate.

As of Oct. 12, Seattle no longer considers students sophomores unless they’ve earned at least five of the required 20 credits to graduate as freshmen. Previously, students were sophomores in their second year of high school, no matter how many credits they had. 

Seattle’s Chief Academic Officer Steve Wilson says the rule was changed to make sure students have successfully completed the courses they will need to pass the WASL.

According to the Center on Education Policy, half of the states currently or soon will require students to pass an exit exam to graduate. By 2012, 72 percent of all public school students will be required to take an exit exam, including disproportionate numbers of minority students (82 percent) and ELLs (87 percent).

“Pass rates for all students taking the exams for the first time ranged in most states from 70 to 90 percent,”.CEP finds, “but achievement gaps between white students and black and Latino students remain very large, averaging 20 to 30 percentage points in most states.” Passage rates also tend to be lower for ELLs and students with disabilities.

In North Carolina and Texas, fewer than 60 percent of students with disabilities passed after multiple attempts, CEP reports.

“We have to resolve the fundamental questions about the fairness of exit exams,” says CEP President Jack Jennings. If this reform strategy is going to succeed, he says, schools and states need to provide more support, particularly for disadvantaged students.

Seventeen states now have or are developing systems to follow the performance of individual students, CEP reports. “This information is critical to understanding the impact of these exams and to help states develop strategies that will close the achievement gap.”

Eleven states have provided new funding or programs for remediation and test preparation. Tennessee and Washington state slightly lowered the passing scores in some subjects. Maryland and Arizona have adopted alternative scoring methods that allow flexibility based on overall performance on exit exams across subjects or grades in corresponding academic courses.