Making a Diploma Meaningful

Nothing catches the attention of floundering students and their parents in quite the same way as the high school exit exam. Other tests float in the vague ether of educational jargon: proficiency, API, subgroups. The exit exam’s message is terse, concrete and personal: Pass or you get no diploma.

After a two-year delay to work out a slew of early problems, the California state exit exam is scheduled to go into effect with the graduating class of 2006. However, three years of testing underclass students (who don’t have to take it again if they pass) have shown obvious and largely positive results. A national report found that far more California schools are teaching the content they’re supposed to. Passing rates are up as teachers and teenagers alike recognize that the exam really counts.

This doesn’t satisfy state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), who has introduced a bill to bring the whole thing to a halt. Her SB 517 would keep the exit exam from counting until all sorts of conditions were met, from more high school counselors to fully certified teachers in all schools. The schools need these, sure, but Romero’s bill does nothing to bring them about. Instead, it allows schools and their students to continue limping along in watered-down classes toward meaningless diplomas.

Romero is justifiably concerned about being fair to disadvantaged and minority teenagers who are failing the test at higher rates. Her worry would be better aimed at how many graduate without the basic reading, writing and math skills that would qualify them for jobs. Now that’s a disservice.

Another bill, AB 1531 by Assemblywoman Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), would let school districts design their own assessments for students who have trouble with the test. There are ways to measure achievement other than the exam, but this is one of those slippery-slope bills that would end up dragging down the whole effort.

The exit exam requires 10th-grade reading and writing skills, plus mastery of basic algebra -- which students are supposed to take in eighth grade. (Questions from previous exit exams are available at www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/hs/resources.asp.) To pass the tests, the students have to get 55% of the math right and 60% of the English. They’ll have six chances to pass, starting in 10th grade, with a last chance within a year of their scheduled graduation. The test is untimed -- students have all day to complete it.

Minimal, right? Yet close to half the state’s students were flunking a couple of years ago. A lot has changed since then. Schools offer more of the curriculum needed to pass, according to a study by the national Center for Educational Policy. They’re doing a better job of identifying failing students and getting them remedial help.

Despite all the talk about students who flunk because they never had a proper opportunity to learn the material, a recent state report found that 90% of students in the class of 2006 said all or most of the material on the test had been covered in their classes. They were 10th graders then, leaving two more years to fill gaps.

According to the California report, close to two-thirds of the students, now juniors, passed both parts of the exam on the first try as sophomores. An additional 10% passed one test but needed to master the other. The state report, by an independent firm that two years ago was critical of the state’s efforts, estimated that the overwhelming majority will pass by graduation day. There is a significant gap for black and Latino students -- slightly less than half passed on the first try -- but that’s still a big improvement from two years before. Los Angeles schools’ results remain lower than the state average, but also dramatically up year to year. Numerous studies have found little evidence that exit exams encourage dropping out.

The exit exam shows with utter clarity exactly which schools are failing to teach the bare-bones minimum. Parents who were confused before about the weaknesses in their local schools will be rightly furious -- and in a good position to demand change.

The test does need some rejiggering. There should be more procedures to help special-ed students and teenagers who aren’t fluent in English. Also, why not give people a lifelong chance at the test, as long as they finished their high school course work?

Some students will face the painful consequence of a diploma denied. But they already face the consequences of being unable to figure out a real-life math problem or comprehend an instruction book.

A diploma should mean more than freedom to graduate both clueless and difficult to employ.