Glendale Unified scores well on high school exit exams

Glendale Unified posted strong results among sophomores who took the state high school exit exam this past school year, according to the latest figures released Wednesday.

For 2011-12, 93% of sophomores who took high school exit exams passed the mathematics portion, while 90% passed the English exam. The scores — released Wednesday by the California Department of Education — represented a 1% improvement in the math category over the year prior.

“It’s up a little bit, which is always good,” said Assistant Glendale Unified Supt. Katherine Fundukian Thorossian. “We have a test that matters for kids, so they invest.”

The passing average in Glendale was significantly higher than in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where 77% of sophomores who took the test passed math and 76% passed English.

Glendale Unified also scored above-average pass rates for California — 84% for math, 83% for English.

Of 2,180 sophomores who took the math test in Glendale Unified, 2,024 passed. The proportion was 2,193 to 1,983 for English.

Students who don’t pass the exam on the first attempt have other opportunities to pass the test in their junior or senior year of high school.

For the second consecutive year, every sophomore who took the test at Clark Magnet High School passed both the English and math exams.

No other school in the Glendale, Burbank and La Cañada school districts scored 100%.

“The Clark staff did a lot of targeted interventions for all our 10th-grade students, but especially those who needed extra support, as well as English-language learners and special-needs students,” Principal Doug Dall said in an email.

He also pointed to an emphasis on literacy development and “academic vocabulary.”

Clark Magnet was one of 3,922 schools in the state that reported scoring 100% on both portions of the exam this year, according to Tina Jung, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Education.

At Glendale High School, the pass rates among 10th-graders were 89% for the math test and 85% for English. At Hoover High School, they were 87% for math and 83% for English.

And at Crescenta Valley High School, 98% passed the math exam, while 97% passed the English test.

The state Department of Education plans to release the results of statewide standardized tests that determine school rankings on Aug. 31.

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