Parents Want Answers to Questions on CLAS : Education: More and more are losing confidence in the test, and some have requested that their children be exempted, citing the scoring debacles, sensitive topics and the secrecy over exam contents.

Sue Stewart edits the parent newsletter at Dana Hills High. For more than a decade, she has been a classroom volunteer; last fall she defended the state’s public schools in debates against the voucher initiative.

But when the time came for her son to take the state’s controversial California Learning Assessment System test this spring, Stewart joined hundreds of Orange County parents in protesting the exam.

Worried by personal questions the fourth-grader asked after his first day of the test, she had him skip the exam afterward, concerned over the scoring debacles she had read about in the newspaper and suspicious about why the state would not let parents see copies of the tests.

“How can you get any real results from this when there is such a controversy?” said Stewart of Laguna Niguel.

Attacks on the state Department of Education’s new tests began when several conservative Christian groups challenged them in court last month. But now the opposition has grown.

Despite a state law that requires districts to administer CLAS, protesters won a proclamation from the state saying parents could have their children opt out. Now, the $26-million test intended for every fourth-, fifth-, eighth- and 10th-grader is missing a small chunk of children.

In Buena Park, Janet Laird joined the anti-CLAS group at her daughter’s softball game, where the bleachers were abuzz with parents worried about the test. Talk radio convinced Kent Yaden, whose children attend Brea Olinda schools. Bad news about the exam has been sizzling through Luana Wells’ Costa Mesa telephone for weeks. None of their children are taking the test this year.

And in Newport-Mesa, where the school board voted to require parental permission slips, only one-fifth of the students took the test.

“I don’t know whether it’s being a product of the ‘60s, but sometimes (government) won’t change things unless they know that people are unhappy,” said Allyn Enke, whose daughter was one of a handful of Santa Ana High sophomores exempted. “I hate to use the word protest, but that’s what it is.”

Launched last year, CLAS tests reading, writing, math, science and social studies, measuring performance against tough statewide standards. Instead of multiple-choice questions, it uses essays, diagrams and other exercises designed to evaluate students’ thought processes as well as their ability to derive correct answers.

State officials said they will not know how many students have opted out until the summer, after all the booklets have been collected. Local districts, though, have some numbers: 100 exemptions in Irvine Unified, 40 in Brea Olinda, 28 in Los Alamitos and 122 in the county’s largest district, Santa Ana Unified.

In most cases, students opting out simply went to the library. Some parents kept their children at home during testing days; other students went in late, after the testing was over. At one school, those who opted out missed a chance to get 75 points toward their English class grade. But after parental protest, the students got a different assignment to earn the extra points.

The situation is reversed in Newport-Mesa Unified, where 80% of the students opted out. Test-takers were sent to the library, while the others remained in class, many for fear they would fall behind in regular schoolwork.

CLAS typically is given in class for an hour a day over a week.

The test “became compromised because it no longer was a pragmatic decision” to take it, said Karen Evarts, whose son Graham was among only 16 sophomores Friday to participate at Newport Harbor High.

Evarts said she made Graham take the test--and even tried to start a mini-movement among her neighbors to support it--because she believes tests like CLAS can help improve teaching in the long run.

But other parents did just the opposite. Some have specific concerns--a reading selection seems offensive, or news about erroneous scoring of last year’s exam made them lose confidence. Some say the whole idea of measuring critical thinking is bunk.

Laird, whose two children skipped the tests this month, said the state should better explain the need for the tests.

“I think the parents need to know. If they’re trying to change the overview of an education, of where we’re going, then explain why. If they’re going to ask some hot topics such as religion and race, they need to explain why,” Laird said.

“I’ve become very protective: Why aren’t they telling me what this test is about? What are they trying to hide that they don’t want me to know? I don’t know what they’re looking for. I guess until I know what they’re looking for I’m not going to (let my children) take it.”

State officials insist that they have only kept the exam content secret to maintain its integrity. In response to parental outrage, the State Board of Education has decided to expand CLAS advisory committees to include more members of the general public and has promised to release segments of the test once all students have taken it this spring.

Meanwhile, the rumors are flying about questions on the exams.

The rumored questions include something about a boy killing a kitten, a Chinese girl’s tongue being cut, two girls of different races competing for one school jacket based on grade point average, a pastor stealing a baby, and a boy getting jumped on his way to the store. As for writing, children supposedly are asked to discuss their least favorite teacher, recount a family fight, and construct an argument persuading their parents to say yes when they already said no--or something similar.

And then there’s the one parable about the apple.

Everyone, it seems, has heard about a question involving 17 apples and four children--and how, when asked who should get the extra apple, test-takers are supposed to say “the neediest child.” One woman even called the state Department of Education complaining of a question concerning one apple and 17 people, including the U.S. President, on a boat. The President gets the apple.

In fact, there are no apple questions at all on the test, said Department of Education spokeswoman Jan Agee.

“That’s never been on the test. It’s folklore,” she said. “They’re reacting to rumors.”

Parents who are opting out admit they do not really know what the tests contain, but say they do not like what they do know: that only a sample of the exams will be graded this year, that reading selections include some racial and religious issues, and that many questions probe personal and family life experiences.

“There’s so many controversies going on right now. I just feel that they’re tearing the family down by asking too many questions,” said Rita Caira, a mother of six who lives in La Palma.

“They can’t really grade this test,” added Jeannie Underwood of Fullerton. “It doesn’t test their academics, it’s testing their psyche and invading their personal life and asking them questions they don’t have any business asking.”

Annie Younglove, president of the Parent-Teacher Assn. at Kaiser Elementary in Costa Mesa, said the current situation is “ironic--or moronic.”

“What is the CLAS test? It’s a test about critical thinking, looking at the problem from all angles,” Younglove said. “The people who wrote the test didn’t do that. They didn’t critically think about the test they were putting out.”