GILROY
– The sighs of relief expressed across California Wednesday –
regarding the state’s decision to graduate students who have not
passed the high school exit exam – were balanced by feelings of
disappointment in Gilroy.
GILROY – The sighs of relief expressed across California Wednesday – regarding the state’s decision to graduate students who have not passed the high school exit exam – were balanced by feelings of disappointment in Gilroy.
Gilroy Unified School District officials today said they plan to move forward with the specialized classes and extra instruction given to students in jeopardy of not passing the exam that will ultimately determine if students receive diplomas.
“It’s not going to change any of our plans and programs and strategies for dealing with kids who need our support,” Superintendent Edwin Diaz said. “But this may potentially reduce the motivation for kids graduating in ’04 and ’05.”
The state Board of Education voted unanimously Wednesday to postpone the high school exit exam requirement for two years, saying that not all students have been properly prepared to take the high-stakes test.
The board voted 9-0 to require the class of 2006 to pass the test to get a diploma. The move spared 400,000 incoming high school seniors and about the same number in the following year, from the requirement.
At Gilroy High School, it spared 57 percent of last year’s 10th-graders (the class of 2005) who did not pass both the math and English sections of the exam.
For 11th-graders at GHS, 84 percent have passed the English section and 73 percent have passed the math portion. Passing rates vary between the two grades because the Class of 2004 (the 11th-graders) has been taking the exit exam since its freshman year. Class of 2006 students have yet to take the exam.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, the author of the 1999 legislation that created the exit exam, urged the two-year delay.
“Not all of our students have had the opportunity to learn,” O’Connell said. “It makes sense to me to step back a moment and briefly delay the high school exit exam.”
But he said the state must eventually enforce the requirement.
“A high school diploma must stand for something,” O’Connell said. “When we set a high bar, our students will meet those higher expectations.”
O’Connell said a report on the exam found the passing rates of first-time test-takers have been improving.
That proves, said board president Reed Hastings, that the “policy goal of the high school exit exam – which is to improve learning – is working.”
The tests – one day of math and two of English – are aligned with the academic standards California adopted in 1997. But the state didn’t anticipate how long it would take to also align the text books and curriculum with the new standards, O’Connell said.
“I think we were overly optimistic with the 2004 date, and we’ve learned from other states,” he said.
Gov. Gray Davis, who signed the law, said after the board’s vote that “having a test with consequences is paying off – more students are learning to higher standards, and more are passing the test every year.
“The board’s decision today should not give schools or students a signal that it is time to let up, slow down or ease off,” Davis said.
In Gilroy, there has been little sign of easing off. GHS summer school Principal John Perales figured students enrolled in remedial classes would bail out after it was learned weeks ago the state would likely nix the exit exam requirement until 2006. However, nearly all of the students enrolled in the summer school courses did not withdraw.
“I think accountability has made a difference on these students and I hope that doesn’t end,” said Perales, who is the principal at Mt. Madonna High School during the regular school year. “We graduated 62 kids from Mt. Madonna (the most in the school’s history), and I attribute a lot of that to kids fearing they’d have to pass the exam.”
A few dozen students, parents and activists urged the board to delay the high-stakes test, many of them holding signs that said “Two years is not enough.” Another 200 people who couldn’t fit in the board auditorium marched outside, chanting and waving signs.
“It’s unfair to punish the students for the failure of the state,” Yvonne Tran, a recent high school graduate from San Jose, told the board.
Under the 1999 law, the class of 2004 was supposed to be the first that would have to pass the California High School Exit Exam to graduate. Students have eight chances to take the test during their high school years.
O’Connell canceled this year’s July test, and said he would also cancel the September and November tests. The test will resume early in 2004, he said, which will give students in the class of 2006 many opportunities to pass the exam.
“We will use the exit exam to help us target additional resources to those students and schools that need help,” O’Connell said.
A report released last month found that about 20 percent of the class of 2004, in all of California, would fail the test’s math portion and not graduate.
The report also said about half of students who aren’t fluent in English and three-quarters of special education students would not be eligible for diplomas because of poor test performance.
GHS student Gabriela Avendano, a member of the Class of 2004, is an example of the non-fluent English speakers. She has passed the math portion of the exit exam but this spring failed the English section again.
Avendano could not be reached for comment since she is in summer school, but her father Hermenegildo Avendano said he will be proud of his daughter regardless of the exit exam status.
“I’ll be proud of her if she makes the effort to pass her regular classes,” Avendano said through an interpreter.
Last month, the Assembly voted 43-28 to keep the exit exam as a measure of student performance, but to delay making it a graduation condition until 2006. The Senate Education Committee approved the bill last week.
Assemblywoman Loni Hancock said Tuesday she’ll still push for her bill because it also requires a report on alternatives to the test, such as portfolios of student work.
“The two-year delay allows us to look at alternatives and allows us to have more students go through the rigorous standards-based instruction we’ve put in place in California,” she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
