In the words of Henry David Thoreau, “It is not enough to
be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy
about?” We need to ask ourselves this same question when we
look at current political efforts to improve public education in
California.
Next year the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) will go
into effect as a graduation requirement for all public school
students. The way things look now, 40 percent of next year’s
high school seniors may fail the exam. They will be denied a high
school diploma because of it.
Requiring students to pass the CAHSEE is a ridiculous political
ploy that will not fix the real problems in California schools.
Passed in 1999, Education Code 60850a requires that, starting
with the class of 2004, all high school students must pass the high
school exit exam in addition to meeting their school
district’s graduation requirements. The test covers language
arts standards through 10th grade and math standards through
algebra.
One of the findings of a state-mandated report on the CAHSEE,
conducted by Human Resources Research Organization of Virginia, was
that only 60 percent of the class of 2004 will pass. The study
estimates that even with increased efforts throughout their senior
year, 20 percent of these students will still fail.
The state seems to think that this test will be a quick fix for
the low achievement in our schools and the lack of students’
mastery of California content standards. The state does not
understand that a test cannot magically solve these problems. Now
it may be forced to go back on its decision and postpone the test
requirement ““ a decision it will vote on in July ““
unless it wants to deal with the crisis situation of so many
students failing to graduate.
Reforms based around standardized testing are ludicrous and will
improve nothing. The test does not improve funding in poor
schools, or train teachers to cope with problems. It is simply a
way that the governor and the legislature can make it look like
something is being done for education without having to plunge into
the depths of more difficult reforms.
We’ve seen similar political moves in other states, most
notably Texas. In 2000, a RAND research team compared Texas
students’ scores on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills
(TAAS) with those on a nationwide exam ““ the National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) ““ and found TAAS
scores to have improved far more dramatically then NAEP scores for
Texas students.
Interestingly, the team also found that while the TAAS shows the
difference between the scores of white students and students of
color to be small and decreasing, the NAEP showed the difference to
be large and increasing. The RAND report states that a likely
cause of this discrepancy is that “many schools are devoting
a great deal of class time to highly specific TAAS
preparation.”
Texas schools are teaching according to the test, and, in so
doing, are inflating test scores ““ scores which politicians
would have us believe indicate improvements in education.
This is not the case.
To see how education is doing, we should look at factors like
class sizes and teacher quality. According to respected educator
and author Alfie Kohn, we should look for “a deeper, richer,
more engaging curriculum in which students play an active role in
integrating ideas and pursuing controversial questions.”
Kohn has this to say about high-stakes testing: “A
preoccupation with performance often undermines interest in
learning, quality of learning and a desire to be
challenged.”
And in the case of Texas, studies have shown that high school
exit tests increase dropout rates, especially among poor and
minority students. We don’t want our educational system
to be turning away those who need it most. That is precisely
what arbitrary exams like the CAHSEE will do.
California needs far more ambitious and challenging changes.
Katayoon Majd, an attorney with the ACLU of Northern California,
says that “by tying graduation to a test for which they have
not been prepared, the state is merely punishing these students for
the state’s own failure to educate them.”
Majd points out that low-income and minority students are more
likely to attend poor schools than middle class white students.
These poor schools have uncredentialed teachers, high teacher
turnover rates, poor or unsafe facilities and inadequate
instructional materials. Students in these schools are not
receiving equal education opportunities and consequently are not
performing as well as others on the CAHSEE.
The test also discriminates against is students with
disabilities, whom the state plans to hold to the CAHSEE
requirement. The Learning Disabilities Association of
California reports that out of all students with learning
disabilities and other documented handicaps who took the test in
2001, 82 percent failed the language arts portion, and 91 percent
failed the math portion.
A statewide, standards-based exam is a good idea, but, at this
stage, only for assessment purposes. California should use the
test to try to focus improvement efforts ““ to see which
schools are doing poorly and which concepts or subjects need more
focus. But it is unreasonable to impose this test on students
as a graduation requirement.
If we do this, we encourage teaching to the test. While
some may argue that this is a good thing since the test covers the
standards the state passed in 1997, I disagree. With the
CAHSEE standing between students and their diplomas, students will
learn strategies and focus only on what is necessary to pass a
test. This creates a situation in which, according to Kohn,
“the intellectual life is being squeezed out of classrooms,
schools are being turned into giant test-prep centers, and many
students ““ as well as some of our finest educators ““
are being forced out.”
While claiming to “raise the bar,” the CAHSEE
““ along with the whole national trend of testing to improve
education ““ grossly misses the mark. The Board of
Education wants to look “busy,” but they’re
really just looking, well, uneducated.
Wagner is a third-year communication studies student.