Students Give Failing Grade to CLAS Test : Education: Many find format invasive, confusing. Officials say exam rates skills, not personal beliefs.

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 Jennie to answer a dozen questions about it--including some she thought were too personal.

“It’s true: When you’re mad, you write more,” Jennie 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 across the state use similar arguments against the California Learning Assessment System tests. They say the exams are more psychological than academic and that they invade students’ privacy.

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

Ask students whether the CLAS tests are passing or failing and the responses are strong and visceral. Some said they made up answers because they feared telling the truth. Others said they resented having to relate a poem or short story to their own lives. And others said they used generalizations rather than actual details in response to essay and short-answer questions.

“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. This is testing if you have good common sense. A test is just more strict. A test is better.”

Other students said they found the untraditional form of the exam confusing. Unlike their experience with other exams, they were encouraged 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.

What is important, they say, is the way students think and write about the literature.

“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. “We encourage students to challenge, to disagree and to take their own stands and not necessarily accept the point of view in a story or a poem.”

But nowhere on the test are students informed that they are being evaluated on their ability to think and express themselves rather than the content of what they write. And although some teachers tell their students what they are being tested on, there is no such standardized procedure to prepare classes for the exam.

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. Students in the fourth, fifth, eighth and 10th grades are taking the assessment test. Most schools will be finished testing by the end of the month.

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. Across the Los Angeles school district, many parents have done just that.

While the strongest opposition is centered 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 exempted.

At South Gate Middle School, 40 students opted out. And at Mount Gleason Middle School in Sunland, 20 students were exempted. At some schools, such as Carson High and Gage Middle School in Huntington Park, just one student chose not to take the tests.

Neither district nor state officials are currently keeping track of the numbers of parents who are refusing to allow their children to take the test. State education officials said they will have to evaluate whether lower numbers of students taking the tests will affect some overall school and district results.

Los Angeles school principals were told last week to compile lists of exempted students and keep files of letters from parents.

After more than a week of taking the tests, students at Millikan said they were asked subjective--and sometimes personal--questions without clear-cut answers. The reading and writing prompted the students to analyze literature in ways they’ve rarely done before using short answers, diagrams and essays.

Principals and teachers across the district said the tests are better methods of assessment than the old-fashioned, multiple-choice exams they are replacing. Even college-placement tests are now performance-based.

But the students clearly aren’t impressed.

“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 her classmates.

“They’re grading us on our opinions--if they don’t agree with us, are our answers wrong?” asked Piruza Papazyan, a fellow Millikan student.

The critics, who range from conservative religious groups to individual parents, 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,” 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, like Cleveland High English teacher Nancy Johnston, said she is 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,” Johnston said. “Some of our 10th-graders are just incapable of reading this without assistance.”

The tests, which were developed and are graded by teams of educators, are intended to coincide with new state guidelines for English and other subjects.

The state encourages students to read and analyze literature in a variety of ways.

But to some parents and students, the subjective nature of the tests is questionable.

“I feel that if they’re going to grade these tests, there should be a right or wrong answer,” said Janice Reilly, a West Hills parent who refused to allow her fourth-grade son to take the tests. “But without that, it would just be the opinion of the grader.”

The state does have scoring guidelines, and teachers who read the tests discuss answers and decide appropriate numerical scores.

The tests are designed to determine 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.”