A UCLA professor recently found that the state of California is presenting artificially high rates of students who passed the high school exit exam last year, the first year it was officially used.
The state reported that more than 90 percent of the class of 2006 passed the exam, but the study found that the actual rate is closer to 78 percent, based upon the total number of students who first took the test their sophomore year.
According to the study, which used California state statistics, the number the state reported failed to account for a large number of students, including those who dropped out prior to the exam and special-education students excused by a waiver.
John Rogers, author of the study and codirector of UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education and Access, said he believed directors of the California education system create overly optimistic pass rates for the exam because of pressures to show success.
“That pressure leads to manipulation or changing of information,” Rogers said.
Students must pass the California High School Exit Exam in order to receive their diploma. Though the exam was created by state law in 1999, the class of 2006 was the first group of students required to pass the exam in order to graduate.
The exam consists of an English language section and a mathematics section and was created to ensure students graduate from high school with grade-level competency in those areas, according to the California Department of Education Web site.
The California Department of Education maintained that the passage percentages they reported for the class of 2006 are correct.
Matt Taylor, education-research and evaluation consultant for the California Department of Education, said the numbers are determined by an outside agency that measures the exit exam success rate based on students who take and pass the exam and does not take into consideration graduation rates.
Rogers argued that providing the public with accurate information could foster support for education improvement and reform throughout the state.
“What’s important is whether there are conditions for success, not symbolic success,” he said.
Education officials have no way to gauge if low pass rates are the result of poor performance by students or poor performance of school systems, said Rogers.
Schools with low pass rates were 10 times more likely to have shortages of qualified teachers and severe overcrowding than schools with high pass rates, he said.
“We can’t have an accurate way to gauge learning until we provide students with the opportunity (to learn),” Rogers said.
The study also found that 50,000 fewer students graduated in California last year compared to the past five years, suggesting that students may have dropped out at a higher rate because of the pressures to pass the exit exam.
The Los Angeles Unified School District counted fewer than 30,000 students in determining its exam pass rate in 2006, compared to the 50,000 students enrolled as tenth-graders in the 2003-2004 school year, according to the study.
Taylor said he could not say whether the exit exam caused students to drop out of school since students leave for a variety of reasons, including having low credits or other personal reasons.
According to the study, students without a high school degree earn approximately one-third less than high school graduates.
Within LAUSD, students who do not pass the exit exam the first time are given several opportunities to retake the exam each year as well as additional exam tutoring, which are all mandated by the state, Susan Cox, LAUSD spokeswoman, said.
Exit exam “boot camps” are offered to students who have not passed the exam by twelfth grade, which include practice exams and additional preparation courses in both math and English language, Cox said.
The extra courses are offered after school and on weekends to fit students’ schedules, she said.
California Superintendent of Instruction Jack O’Connell has called the extra curriculum a “shining light” for the schools with low pass rates, Taylor said.
“Our job is to educate those students and see those deficiencies,” Taylor said.