Persistence pays off: Thousands pass CAHSEE after graduation day

Nearly half the seniors in the class of 2006 who failed to pass the California high school exit exam in time to graduate with their classmates have continued working to master the skills necessary to succeed on the test and earn their diplomas, according to the latest figures released by the state Department of Education.

Some 17,522 of these 2006 seniors—or 45 percent of those who had not passed both portions of the exam by graduation day—returned to high school or enrolled in adult school the following fall to improve their academic skills, according to an analysis of the most recent test scores by the Human Resources Research Organization, the body commissioned by the Legislature to monitor the impact of the exam. Nearly 4,800 of those students passed the exam after taking it one more time, HumRRO reported.

“I want to congratulate every one of those students for persisting and reaching this important goal,” said Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell. “And I want to thank the dedicated teachers and staff who have been there for these students to provide academic assistance and encouragement along the way.”

A total of 91.4 percent of seniors in the class of 2007 have passed the exam thus far, a pass rate that’s 2.1 percent higher than the rate for the class of 2006 at this time last year.

Achievement gap narrows

During an April 16 press conference, O’Connell said the most recent results also contain good news about progress in closing the achievement gap. Black and Hispanic students in the class of 2007 made the most significant improvements of any student subgroup over the past year, HumRRO reported. As of February, Black students had improved their pass rates on the California High School Exit Exam by 4.5 percent when compared with their counterparts in the class of 2006. Hispanic students in the class of 2007 improved their pass rates by 3.4 percent over 2006’s Hispanic seniors. White students improved their performance by half a percent between 2006 and 2007.

O’Connell, who has made it a priority to improve the performance of black and Hispanic students so that it does not lag behind that of white and Asian students, said these numbers represented the first time that the gap between these student subgroups has narrowed significantly.

Despite the improvement, the achievement gap remains significant. White and Asian students in the class of 2007 have pass rates on CAHSEE of 97 percent and 95.4 percent, while 85.6 percent of black members of the class of 2007 and 85.9 percent of their Hispanic classmates have passed the exam so far. Seniors have another chance to pass the exam in May.

O’Connell said he remains concerned about the performance of English language learners, who made only modest improvements over the past year. Last year, 71.2 percent of EL students who were seniors in 2006 had passed the exam at this point in the academic year, compared with 72.6 percent of EL students in the class of 2007.

“While making gains, this group is still improving at a rate below that of most ethnic groups and of all students statewide,” he said. “I also want to stress that the skills measured by the exit exam are the minimum skills we expect students to learn in order to receive a diploma.”

Related link:

http://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr07/yr07rel54.asp