The Oakland Unified School District board voted yesterday to ignore state law and grant diplomas to students who did not pass the state’s high school exit exam.  It was a cheap political move by the board’s part because they know that State Administrator Randall Ward is unlikely to support the decision.  Without Ward’s signoff, the vote was symbolic, allowing the board to placate the people who complain that the exit exam is unfair.

Dan Siegel, the board member who proposed the resolution, said that it is "very unfair to say to students who, for 13 years, have done what we have asked them to do, ‘You can’t graduate.’"

Clearly, the Oakland schools, as run by Siegel and his peers, have not asked these seniors to apply themselves and learn.  The clowns in charge of Oakland schools have squandered the public’s money, ruined children’s futures, watered down standards, denied school choice for families stuck in bad public schools, protected bad teachers, the list goes on.  But in the end, they always cry that they just don’t have enough money to create schools that actually work.  And now they are complaining that the exit exam is unfair. 

The Oakland school board wants to hand out diplomas to students who haven’t mastered the work that diploma is supposed to represent.  I’m sure it is all for their self-esteem.  But how high is their self-esteem going to be when they can’t manage a checking account or don’t know how to do simple math required for many jobs?

In March, when the statewide exam results were announced, the Oakland-based non-profit Education Trust West issued an interesting commentary on the results.  In light of the action taken by the Oakland school board, supposedly done “for the children,” this commentary reminds us that while the schools are supposed to be preparing students to succeed in the outside world, they are failing those most in need.

For the full commentary, click here.

In order to pass CAHSEE, students need to answer 55% of the questions correctly in math and 60% in English. The CAHSEE tests mathematics standards from sixth and seventh grades, as well as Algebra I, and English language arts standards through tenth grade.  The standards tested are minimal – the test is actually more like a middle school exit exam than one representative of the true skills we want students to know and be able to do when they leave our high school doors.  CAHSEE gauges whether students leave high school with the absolute minimum level of skills necessary for life after high school.   

For example, one question asks students to know that 180 days is about 50% of 365 days.  The multiple choice question gave three other possible answers:  18%, 75% or 180%.  What does it say about our system that high school students –after 6 chances – don’t know the answer?  How are young people supposed to be able to calculate their monthly income if they can’t figure out how much of their gross pay goes to taxes?  That’s of course, if they could earn a wage sufficient to support a family in the first place. 

The truth is, far too many of today’s high school seniors are tragically underprepared for life after high school.  Almost one in five African-American and Latino seniors haven’t passed both sections of the test.  Conversely, almost all of their White and Asian counterparts have been successful:  96% of White students, and 94% of Asian students have passed.   The situation is far worse for our English Language Learners, a full 21,376 (31%) of students learning English in this year’s senior class haven’t passed as of last November.   

Let us be clear:  these failure rates don’t result from student’s innate ability, or lack thereof.  The public school system has failed these students, and in turn students struggle on the test.  There is a justifiable concern held by many that state resources aren’t adequate to provide both teachers and students with the support they need to make quick improvements.  The state has a responsibility to alleviate those concerns.  Funnel the resources.  Channel the interventions.  Provide necessary supports – early. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 1st, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.