for the
Knowledge Economy
Exit Exam Adds No Value to Diploma
by Peter HANLEY
Peter H. Hanley
Published Articles:
"Tenure, Seniority & Pay"
California Parents for Educational Choice Foundation, October 2005 (How CTA policies hurt California children and good teachers)
"Sacred Cows Perpetuate Education's High Cost," San Francisco Chronicle, January 9, 2003 (Why reform is so slow and so necessary)
"Teaching Out of Sync," ideas on critical reforms necessary to return teaching to an attractive, long-term profession.
Whenever words cease to have meaning, whenever awards fail to represent achievement, any system is approaching a breakdown. Such is now the case with the California high school diploma.
Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research group, found that 73% of professors and 59% of employers do not believe that a diploma guarantees a student has learned the basics. Even 25% of high school teachers agreed. In response to public outrage over achievement levels, California now requires all students as of 2004 to pass an “exit” exam, based on “rigorous content standards” to receive a diploma.
Sadly, this exam as constituted will do nothing to return the high school diploma to its once esteemed position. Instead of an exit exam that demonstrates high school competency in reading, writing, and mathematics, the State Board of Education is testing at about grade 9 1/2 in English-language arts and primarily at grades 6 and 7 in mathematics. Its highest level is Algebra 1, now an 8th grade course. We do have an exit exam here, but it’s for middle school, not high school!
If that is not sufficient to concern anyone who realizes that all students must performat higher levels to succeed post-high school, State Superintendent of Public Education Delaine Eastin recommended that the passing score be 60% for English-language arts and 55% for mathematics. This move degraded a highly questionable academic reform tool to an outright sham. The message is that it is just fine if a high school graduate can barely answer over half the questions on an 8th grade exam.
Last spring the State’s mandated SAT-9 test found that 35% of all California 9th graders read at grade level, yet 64% of them managed to pass the English-language arts high school exit exam only two-thirds through the academic year. How does such a manipulation contribute to addressing the realities of the education crisis?
This test is to a renaissance in education as Neville Chamberlain’s Munich Conference was to “peace in our time.” It produces worthless pieces of paper that education leaders and politicians can wave and declare progress toward excellence, while the reality is a continuing slide of a huge majority of students toward functional incompetence. It sends the misleading message to many parents, especially those with weak educations themselves or English language challenges, that their children are doing well and on track to leave high school adequately prepared. No wonder that the American Management Association found that more than one-third of job applicants flunked basic skills tests in 2000. Over 50% of students entering college must take at least one remedial course.
Testing is certainly a part of the answer to improving academic performance, but only if the test and its scoring reflect reality. Pretending that students are achieving at the high levels today’s economy demands damages everyone. We also must reform this 100 year old, agrarian-based educational model to target remedial assistance on the vast number of students requiring it. Our kids and parents deserve the truth from public education and its full cooperation in redressing a terrible situation.
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Peter Hanley
1033 Shoreline Drive
San Mateo, CA 94404
Published Articles:
"Citizens Asked to Willingly Suspend Their Disbelief," San Jose Business Journal, December 1, 2000. (Test results--a look behind the education establishment's proclamations)
"Toward an Educational System for the Knowledge Economy," Institute for the Future, 2000. (An essay on current problems and the future of education) A PDF file that requires Adobe Acrobat. Download it for free here.
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