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Arcadia Weekly Oct 21, 2015
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– Courtesy Photo
By J. Shadé Quintanilla
As many high school seniors prepare to graduate and apply to college, there’s one thing they no longer have to think about – the California Exit Exam. Earlier this month, Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 172, which put an end to the decade-old exam for the next three years. Authored by Senator Carol Liu (D-La Cañada Flintridge), the new law will also award former high school students, who failed the test back in 2006 and on, with high school diplomas if they met their school’s graduation requirements.
The passing of SB 172 comes at the relief of many students, former students, educators and school administrators. The California Exit Exam (CAHSEE) has been a statewide requirement for obtaining a high school diploma since 2006. Measuring skills in 8th grade math and 10th grade language arts, the exam has been administered to thousands of public high school students in order to ensure students graduate with basic skills. An annual evaluation of the exam by the Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO) in 2014 found that 95.5 percent of high school seniors passed the CAHSEE. But, the 4.5 percent of students that did not pass were left without high school diplomas. Even more, the report found evidence that the exam has prevented or delayed 1 to 4 percent of high school seniors from graduating over the years, meaning between 37,695 and 150,780 students were unable to receive high school diplomas.
For more than a decade, the exam has received a lot of criticism. Many critics considered the CAHSEE to be an unfair requirement, especially for English-language learners and students with learning disabilities. ESL students taking the test were supposed to receive help from glossaries in their native languages and translators, but HumRRO found that these resources were not available for many of these students. According to the evaluators, the test “has been a significant barrier for students classified as English learners.”
Other critics of the CAHSEE claimed the exam set a low education standard for high school students. Dr. Brent Forsee, principal of Arcadia High School, called the former requirement a political exam, rather than an actual assessment of what he expects his students to know by the time they graduate.
“Our expectations are far higher, or should be far higher, than what’s on the California High School Exit Exam,” he said. “It’s a waste of time and a waste of money that the state uses, that districts use that could be put into actually helping kids towards a real world education.”
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson also spoke out against the test while applauding the governor for signing SB 172.
“The high school exit exam is outdated and does not reflect California’s new, more rigorous academic standards that emphasize skills needed to succeed in college and careers in the 21st century,” he said in a statement.
While the new law is a godsend for former school students who have faced many challenges without a high school diploma, some school districts are worried about the process of giving out diplomas to past students. Joilyn Campitiello, Director of Educational Services at Duarte Unified School District, believes that retroactively awarding diplomas can cause a lot of problems for school districts across the state. She is concerned about how schools will go about finding former students, what year should be placed on the diplomas and about whether current or past school board members are required to sign the high school degrees. Campitiello also worries about possible litigation from past students who were not able to get their diplomas and faced problems finding jobs and attending college after high school.
“Who is held accountable for the law change?” she asked. “There are so many unanswered questions.”
The new law requires the state superintendent to assemble a panel to decide on whether to bring back the exit exam in three years or new requirements for high school students. Until then, some school districts are figuring out other ways to assess their students before graduation. The Duarte Unified School District is considering designing end-of-course tests, while the Arcadia School District is currently studying state-released Common Core exams to align them with their own student assessments.
