CLAS Tests Anger Pupils Even as...

Eighth-grader Jennie Hoffman was angry.

She didn’t like the poem she had just read about an overprotective mother who refused to let her son make new friends, and now the controversial CLAS test required Hoffman to answer about a dozen questions about it--including some she thought too personal.

“It’s true: When you’re mad, you write more,” Hoffman said during a break in testing at Millikan Middle School in Sherman Oaks. “But I don’t think it’s right for a test to make you mad. These aren’t questions that are right and wrong. It’s just what kids think.”

Critics around the state use similar arguments against the California Learning Assessment System tests. They say the exams designed to judge writing and reading comprehension are more psychological than academic and invade student privacy.

To supporters, however, the innovative tests do exactly what they were designed to do: engage students in interesting and provocative reading material and prompt them to write passionately and with conviction.

Ask students whether the tests themselves pass or fail and the responses are strong and visceral.

Some said they made up their responses to questions that asked for personal opinions because they feared telling the truth. Others said they resented having to relate a poem or short story to their own lives. Still others said they used generalizations rather than actual details.

“This was more like a survey,” said Justin Canel, a Millikan 14-year-old. “A test is when you sit at a desk, you don’t talk and you answer the questions--otherwise you fail.”

Other students said they found the untraditional form of the exam confusing. Unlike other exams, it encouraged them to discuss the material in groups and try out their thinking on classmates.

“You don’t know whether you’re supposed to impress the people who are reading it or say what you really felt and thought about the reading,” said Michelle Lloren, a 10th-grader at Cleveland High School in Reseda. “I think all the money they spent on these tests should have been spent on buying English books that we could read during our classes.”

The only way to impress the test scorers, say teachers and state education officials, is to write clearly and proficiently. What the students say in their essays is unimportant--even hypothetical answers to questions about their personal life are fine since the graders won’t be evaluating the content, officials said.

“I’m sure kids do make up some examples--but that’s not what we’re looking for,” said Jill Wilson, a consultant with the state Department of Education. “We’re looking for writing and all the characteristics of good writing.”

State education officials who designed the exams said the reading sections were carefully selected to encourage students to write and analyze literature in new ways. The tests measure students against tough statewide standards based on a more rigorous academic curriculum.

“You want to engage them enough so they care and they are more likely to discuss with energy and to write with conviction,” Wilson said.

Thousands of Los Angeles Unified School District students faced the tests last week for the first time since the controversy over the contents of the CLAS exams erupted several months ago.

Because of the controversy, which has sparked lawsuits across California, the state Department of Education allowed school districts to let parents exclude their children from taking the tests.

While the strongest opposition is in the west San Fernando Valley, parents from one end of the sprawling district to the other have opted to exempt their children from the tests. At Hale Middle School in Woodland Hills, for example, 100 students out of 741 were excused. At South Gate Middle School, 40 students opted out. At some schools, such as Carson High and Gage Middle School, just one student chose not to take the tests.

Neither district nor state officials are keeping track of the numbers of parents refusing to allow their children to take the test. Los Angeles school principals were told last week to compile lists of exempted students and to keep files of letters from parents.

During more than a week of testing, students at Millikan complained about the subjective--sometimes personal--questions without clear-cut answers. The reading and writing prompted the students to analyze literature in ways they’ve rarely done before and to use short answers, diagrams and essays.

“I had one question asking if I had regrets about something,” said Devin Johnson, a Millikan 14-year-old. “I was thinking for a long time. It was a real personal question.

“Everyone I know made up the answer,” she said, drawing a round of laughter from classmates.

The critics, who range from conservative religious groups to individual parents leery of performance-based tests, say students should not be given open-ended writing assignments without clear-cut, multiple-choice questions.

“There’s controversy over whether this is a psychological test or an academic test,” said Chris Trujillo, a North Hollywood parent who demanded that her fourth- and eighth-grade children be exempted from the tests. “It’s all been so secretive. Teachers aren’t allowed to speak about it. I just didn’t want my children exposed to it.”

State officials have denied that the exams--mandated by the Legislature as part of a years-long effort to improve public schools--are psychological tests, and they refuse to allow parents to review them prior to the end of the year. In June, however, the state Board of Education has agreed to release at least portions of the current tests.

Some educators are concerned that the reading selections--which include excerpts of Richard Wright’s “Black Boy,” among others--are too difficult.

“Some (students) could be lost at the very first sentence,” said Cleveland High English teacher Nancy Johnston. “Some of our 10th-graders are just incapable of reading this without assistance.”

Scoring is done by teams of teachers who read the tests, discuss answers and decide on numerical scores based on standards used statewide. Scorers of the writing tests are told to judge whether students can write in a convincing and coherent way, drawing from the reading selections.

But tell that to the students. “One question asked what kind of problems teen-agers have with their parents,” said Nikki Addis, a Millikan 14-year-old. “This has nothing to do with English. That’s personal.”

Added Angel Salais, a Millikan classmate: “That’s not a problem in my house. I talk to my parents all the time. I didn’t know what to write . . . and I don’t feel like telling anyone about my family.”