Labor Day weekend signals more than just the end of summer. It also signals the end of American innocence about public school testing and accountability. California has joined the growing list of states who are jumping on the wagon of requiring exit exams to graduate with a high school diploma. Each state currently has different graduation requirements.
While Texas began the TAKS test officially in the year 2002, the TAAS test was already in place as part of the graduation/diploma requirement. Typically, many of these students fulfill the class requirements for their district, but if they do not pass TAKS, for example, they do not ‘walk,’ nor do they get a diploma. California will now require a test for graduation.
The test, called the CAHSEE — the California High School Exit Exam — will be a state-mandated requirement beginning with the classes of 2005. Just looking at the results for all classes, groups, and subgroups of students, they look pretty darn good. Especially the passing rate for math for African American students. The two testable areas (currently) are math and ELA (English Language Arts). Since the writer is more familiar with the TAKS test, we will explore those waters to get a sense of just how deep it is for students.
If you are asking yourself “What is TAKS?”, the short answer would be that "By law, Texas students must now pass a state assessment in order to be promoted at certain grade levels and to graduate from high school.” And the more detailed answer taken from the Dennison (Texas) ISD homepage:
Students in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 are administered the state-mandated TAKS tests each spring. There are six tests at different grade levels and subject areas: Math, Reading, Writing, Science, Social Studies and English Language Arts.
By state law, before a student can receive a diploma from a Texas high school, he or she must pass all four individual exams – Math, English Language Arts, Social Studies and Science. If the student fails one or more of the tests, he or she is given several opportunities to retake the test(s) until earning a passing score. Students get their first opportunity to pass the EXIT-Level of the TAKS tests in Grade 11.
How does the new CAHSEE compare? It’s a housecat compared to the older beast known as the Texas TAKS test. However, researchers have already sharpened their pencils on this one to report that the outlook is bleak for minority students who hail from decidedly impoverished zip codes.
Article comments
1 - Baronius
We really have to restore value to high school diplomas. The exit exam is a great start. Do you know how many states are using them?
2 - Heloise
From one map it appeared that about half the states are using the exams. And yes the test assures that the diploma means more. Kids are just "passed-along" to the next grade too often.
Heloise
3 - Mark Saleski
the only thing that the exit exam will ensure is that curriculums will be bent to teach toward the test.
4 - Nancy
I spent all my life under testing standards, and it didn't hurt me or anybody else at school with me that I know of. It was simply a fact of life that in order to pass to the next grade, you had to pass the tests (and the classwork). Basta. No questions, no problems. If you studied & did your homework, you passed; if you didn't, you didn't, and there was no bullshit about anyone's little ego suffering from being made to repeat the grade. This ensured that those who did pass to the next grade were able to keep up with the materials being presented in that next grade, and not simply there because the school authorities felt they would otherwise be traumatized, at the cost of holding the rest of the class back, as they do today. This is grossly unfair; maybe it salves the ego of one underperforming kid, but it cheats the rest of them of both their time & efforts. Additionally, there are just too many students these days to be able to target each one on that kind of level to determine eligibility to graduate. Of all the ways to ensure some sort of uniform guarantee that the students graduating are truly & genuinely qualified to hold their diplomas, across the board standard testing is the fairest & most equitable, as well as the most cost-effective.
Those students who are substandard, inattentive, or deficient for whatever reason should be identified and routed to remedial classes where their needs can be addressed without causing disruption or holding back the rest of the students. Shielding them by simply passing them on is not only unfair to them, it's betraying them in the worst possible way, since I can guarantee you that when they get out into the cold, cruel world of the adult workplace, NO ONE is going to give a rats ass if their egos are bruised or they feel inadequate or stupid. They're going to have to toe the line & be prepared to perform at the same level or better as everybody else, and there will be no tender-hearted educators or parents to shield them.
My own sister, 7 years my junior, is a living example of the difference between the stricter system that holds students accountable and the current system that allows slackers or the untalented to pass: I was held to testing standards, which had been abolished by the time she came along. I am literate. She is not. I can qualify for almost any position I want. She can't. Why? Because she was promoted without being truly qualified, and all along the line, she was 'passed' rather than held to account, because at that point it was felt it would be damaging to her self-esteem to be held back until she WAS qualified.
So now she holds only lower-echelon jobs, not because she's unintelligent, but because she can't really perform literately in a literacy-mandated society. She was cheated, by a system trying to be kind; what that system and those who administered it forget is that kindness is not an element of the pressures of everyday life; so in the end she was denied having to learn to make the grade. Literally.
5 - Heloise
While that may be true, it is not necessarily a bad thing. Why? Because it will lead to what the regular curriculum requires: Hand's-on activities. The population that is mostly in public high schools learn better this way. The biggest problem? Lazy teachers who are just there to get a paycheck and who cannot be fired.
This is a much bigger problem than the testing.
Heloise
6 - Heloise
"Those students who are substandard, inattentive, or deficient for whatever reason should be identified and routed to remedial classes where their needs can be addressed without causing disruption or holding back the rest of the students. Shielding them by simply passing them on is not only unfair to them, it's betraying them in the worst possible way, since I can guarantee you that when they get out into the cold, cruel world of the adult workplace, NO ONE is going to give a rats ass if their egos are bruised or they feel inadequate or stupid. They're going to have to toe the line & be prepared to perform at the same level or better as everybody else, and there will be no tender-hearted educators or parents to shield them."
Nancy well said. But that does not mean I can agree with you.
In your first quoted sentence you are talking about a legal issue: inclusion. All students unless they are severely handicapped must be included. Even though with Down's are put in regular classes. You are saying to EXCLUDE them.
Teachers cannot pick and choose their students.
Heloise
7 - Heloise
Nancy, your sister may have had an unidentified learning disability. Ever thought about that?
Heloise
8 - Nancy
Whatever the cause, she was passed to the next grade without being able to do the work, so that she just got further & further behind. She would have done much better to have been kept back a year & repeated, so that she understood the material. She herself told me this, so I have to agree.
9 - Heloise
That's socially unacceptable to many--that's why it is called a social promotion.
I think she would have benefitted from waiting another year in school. But again it proves my point she may have had a learning disability.
Many great people are auto-didactic.
Heloise
10 - Nancy
Please define. Thanks.
11 - Heloise
A learning disability is anything that impedes a person's learning. Cher said she was dyslexic, and had trouble learning to read. Some stars and regular people have made public that they were slow learners for many reasons, or have never learned to read.
Heloise
12 - tania
im a texas student in the 9th grade..moving to california..i always get 100 on my taks test..or i only miss one..is the Cashee going to be a problem for me?
13 - Heloise
Hi there,
I still teach physics in Texas at a low-performing school. If you are doing that well on TAKS then you should have no problem. They are similar, TAKS is just older.
Have fun.
Heloise
14 - Marcia L. Neil
Why should everything we do be funneled to the English, who are said to have set up the first formal school system in the Americas because they needed them to survive here? Now exit exams are the send-off -- not JUST New York state but others as well. Check the size of the ears that constant classmates have -- when one is wrong they all peter over.
15 - Marcia L. Neil
Not JUST to the English now, you say -- to the Spanish, to the entire European Union (which was a change championed whereas FBI-linked ATM machines using 'euro' in the computer-programming was intended)?