California High School Exit Exam Results Show Continued Growth

95 Percent of Students Meet Graduation Requirement

The percentage of students from the Class of 2012 meeting the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) graduation requirement increased slightly over last year to 95 percent, marking the sixth straight year of improving performance, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced today.
“When 95 percent of California students are hitting the mark—despite the tremendous challenges we face and the work we still have to do—there’s an awful lot going right in our public schools,” Torlakson said. “I congratulate the students who succeeded on this test, the teachers who provided invaluable instruction, and the parents who gave their support and encouragement.”
The CAHSEE is administered each year to ensure that students who graduate from public high schools demonstrate competency in reading, writing, and mathematics. Students who do not pass the CAHSEE in grade ten have two opportunities in grade eleven and up to five opportunities in grade twelve to pass the exam.
The preliminary 2011-12 results—which are for the July, October, November, and December 2011 and the February, March, and May 2012 test administrations—show increased passing rates among most demographic subgroups of students by the end of their senior year. Some of the largest gains were made by African American and Hispanic students. Overall, about 95 percent, or 424,480 students, in the Class of 2012 successfully passed both the English-language arts (ELA) and the mathematics portions of the CAHSEE by the end of their senior year. This was an increase of 0.8 of a percentage point over the previous year (See Tables 1 and 2) and an increase of 4.6 percentage points since the Class of 2006, the first class required to pass the CAHSEE.
“While I’m happy about the progress made by the Class of 2012, I still have concerns for the Class of 2013, the Class of 2014, and all the classes that will follow,” Torlakson said. “We have made solid improvement, but schools and districts are facing some unprecedented challenges right now. Overcrowded classrooms, shorter school years, and fewer teachers are in store for us unless we stop the cuts to education funding and begin restoring some of what has been cut in recent years.”
Results for the exam, which is one of several state and local graduation requirements for all students, will be provided at the school, district, county, and state levels and will be posted on the CDE CAHSEE Summary Results Web page. Individual student CAHSEE results are confidential and are not included in the Internet posting.
This year’s overall passing rate did not include students with disabilities as these students are currently exempt from meeting the CAHSEE requirement, except for taking the exam in grade ten to meet state and federal requirements. Many of the students, however, continue to take the exam. For the Class of 2012, the passing rate for students with disabilities was 55.5 percent compared to 56.3 percent last year and 47.8 percent for the Class of 2006 (See Table 3).
Among African Americans, 91.9 percent of the Class of 2012 passed the exam, an increase of 2.3 percentage points over the Class of 2011 and 8.2 percentage points over the Class of 2006.
Equally significant were gains made by Hispanic or Latino students of the Class of 2012, who had passing rates of 93.1 percent, an increase of 1.4 percentage points over the Class of 2011 and 7.6 points over the Class of 2006.
Asian students passed the test at a rate of 97.8 percent or 0.7 of a percentage point improvement over last year; and white students passed at a rate of 98.6 percent, or 0.4 of a percentage point increase over last year.
The percentage of students passing the CAHSEE in the tenth grade, which is the first opportunity they have to take the exam, has steadily increased as well. Some 83 percent of the Class of 2014 has already passed the ELA portion, compared to 82.4 percent of the Class of 2013 (See Table 4). For mathematics, the passage rate for first-time test takers in the Class of 2014 was 83.6 percent, compared to 82.7 percent of the Class of 2013.
The gap between Hispanic and white students has narrowed by 12.5 percentage points from the Class of 2006 to the Class of 2014 (who were tenth graders this past school year) for the ELA portion of the CAHSEE. For the mathematics portion, the gap between Hispanic and white students has narrowed by 12.9 percentage points from the Class of 2006 to the Class of 2014. Similarly, the gap between African American and white students has narrowed by 7.5 percentage points from the Class of 2006 to the Class of 2014 in ELA. And in mathematics, the gap between African American and white students has narrowed by 10.5 percentage points from the Class of 2006 to the Class of 2014.

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