Last week, I had the opportunity to be on “Week In Review” on a local cable channel. The show is a roundtable discussion of various topics of local, state and national politics and events. The show is hosted by Bob Jimenez, USC Professor and former radio journalist, who brings an educated balance to the show. The show is set up in such a way as there are four panelists — two from the Left, generally Democrats or Independents, and two from the Right, generally Republicans.
The show has four segments, three with guests who are usually there to present on some legislation or social movement.
This past week, I met state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Con-nell, who was on to discuss the high school exit exam. It had just been re-instated by the California State Supreme Court, but was being sent back to be re-evaluated in the lower courts. Mr. O’Connell was a sponsor of the bill when he was in the state senate. The bill was signed by Gov. Gray Davis.
The goal of the high school exit exam is laudable. Students who graduate 12th grade should be capable of doing math at the 8th grade level and they should be reading and writing at a 10th grade English level.
In California, we have approximately 47,000 high school seniors who are set to graduate from high school this June, but will not be given a diploma because they have not passed this exam. That means that they have passed enough classes and have enough credits to matriculate with a high school degree, but for the simple fact that they have not passed this one exam.
This, of course, begs the question of how did these 47,000 students, who do not have the skills to complete 8th grade math, get through 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grades? Mr. O’Connell, who had just won re-election, did not have an answer for me. He did however state that he believed in accountability.
So what does this really mean? It means that about 11 percent of the high school seniors of the state of California are unable to pass a core competency test. There are many reasons for this. Some do not know the material and some people do not test well. They get anxious, lose their focus and even though they know the material, they cannot think clearly under testing pressures.
This does not make them bad people, or incompetent, it simply means that they have other talents. Mr. O’Connell wants to see the day when all students pass the exam. He says that 100 percent pass rate is the goal.
For those students who do not test well, we could have a pre-test test, and screen those who test poorly. If they fail that test, they cannot take the exit exam. This would be a good way to limit the test taking to only those people who are likely to pass the exam, and then we could say with assurance that we have achieved our goal of 100 percent of those taking the exam have passed.
If this sounds very much like a George Orwell “1984” doublespeak — twist the numbers until we get the results we want plan — you are correct. It is what is being demanded of our schools, our teachers and our students. They are being made to adhere to a false set of arbitrary criteria in a vain attempt to make everyone feel good about how much we are doing to ensure our children’s future.
It is just like when the federal government establishes standards for schools, and then does not provide the funding to allow the individual schools to achieve the goals. This is called an unfunded mandate.
We need leaders, not politicians. We need elected officials to stand up and speak the truth. The truth is that 100 percent of the high school students in our state should not be graduating if they have to pass an 8th grade math test or a 10th grade English test. And that’s okay.
Seriously. That’s acceptable. What’s not acceptable is that we are not providing them skills to provide for themselves. Because the politicians have fed us a steady diet of “all students can go to college” it has lead to this vain idea that all students have to know the same things that lead to college. That is crap.
The goal should not be that 100 percent of the students pass this test, it should be that 100 percent of the students graduate high school with a skill set to provide for themselves. For some, that means academics and a future college career. For others, it means a working knowledge of the internal combustion engine or how to work a steel press or a wood-turning lathe.
It is not the 11 percent of the students who cannot pass this test who fail, it is our leaders, who are not providing them with appropriate training opportunities to become self-sufficient, who fail. (David Pisarra is a business development lawyer in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He welcomes your questions and comments. He or 310/664-9969.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 20, 2006. Read the original PDF.