Comments on: Exit exam doesn’t do much

By: KateC

KateC — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 02:39:59 +0000

Mu daughter’s entire–ENTIRE–freshman class at her Catholic all-girls school passed the exit exam at the end of freshman year. No one decided to drop out, as the school carefully explained that this test represented the minimum knowledge any California high school grad could be expected to know. The parents were all very impressed.

By: Vandal Savage

Vandal Savage — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:24:55 +0000

Texas actually has a pretty good set of high school exit exams (called the “TAKS”) – 12th Graders are tested on Math, Science, English Language Arts, and Social Studies – what I would consider the four main academic subjects.

The Social Studies includes basic Texas, U.S. and World History; the Science includes basic Physics, Chemistry, and Biology (as well as testing students’ ability to think logically and apply the scientific method); and the Math includes Algebra I & II, Geometry, and a little basic Trig.

Even the questions are asked in a vey good manner! Too bad that Texas is under pressure from the teacher’s union and parents to get rid of it…

By: dkzody

dkzody — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:20:58 +0000

I am much amused by Bill Leonard’s disappointment as a taxpayer in the Exit Exam. Bill, you should come hang out in an inner city school for a day or so and really see how your taxpayer funds are treated by the kids who attend. Our students are not doing well on this test (which is very easy) because the kids don’t come to school or they don’t do much when they do.

By: Bill Leonard

Bill Leonard — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:16:20 +0000

I stand corrected on the random guess proposition. But the main point is, not very much is tested — and as Me points out, if a kid can’t muster 55 percent of the correct answers, he or she doesn’t deserve to graduate. I suppose it can be deemed progress if the once-worthless high school diploma now is only semi-worthless. But it dosen’t make me very happy to be a California taxpayer!

By: Independent George

Independent George — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:34:51 +0000

It occurs to me that the exit exam is actually functioning exactly as intended, and doing quite a lot – it’s just that we don’t like the result, and are choosing to ignore it. The exit exam seems to be giving us stark evidence that, despite a very low threshold for ‘success’, (a) the schools are not doing a good job of educating its students, and (b) they seem to be failing poor, black and hispanic kids the worst.

Probably most people already knew this to be true, but it’s a lot different when you have actual numbers; it reminds me of the early years of CompStat in NYC. The skeptics didn’t see anything novel in knowing exactly how bad the crime rate was (“It’s pretty rough out there.” “Thanks!”), but simply identifying the scope of the problem was useful in directing the solution. Buried in the data is a school-by-school comparison of which places over and under performed their peers, and exactly which areas they were strongest or weakest. You can then compare to standardized test data from prior years within the same school, track the trend, and compare test data vs. GPAs for leading and trailing indicators.

It also makes me think of the way Project Follow Through was buried; the tests may in fact be very successful in telling us what’s happening, except nobody really wants to know what’s happening.

By: Me

Me — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:15:58 +0000

“I always understood the primary purpose of exit exams was to ensure that a H.S. diploma met some minimum threshold of education, and not as a motivational tool.”

You’d think so, wouldn’t you? That’s the reason why I say, keep the exit exam even if it means that fewer students graduate. At the very least, it restores some semblance of meaning to a high school diploma. Not MUCH meaning, mind you, but prior to the implementation of the exit exam, a high school diploma was beyond worthless. Now it’s just semi-worthless. If students can’t muster up a 55% passing grade, they don’t deserve to graduate anyway. I could get a passing grade in my sleep, and it’s been a while since I’ve tackled algebra.

By: Me

Me — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:10:06 +0000

Margo, I do understand how the laws of probability work, actually. What you are describing would be the probability of someone getting ALL the questions right by random guessing (“.25 * .25 * .25″ translates to “the probability of getting question 1 correct AND question 2 correct AND question 3 correct…”). My post is referring to how many questions a student can reasonably assume to get correct if he randomly guesses, not the probability that the student WILL get all the answers correct.

Joanne — thanks for the elaboration on the testing format. The standards are indeed ridiculously low. I mean, really, 8th grade math? Then again, I’ve tutored 12th grade students who can’t do basic arithmetic without a calculator. And these students were taking CALCULUS. Good grief…

By: Joanne Jacobs

Joanne Jacobs — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 20:44:31 +0000

It’s a multiple-choice exam with four choices per question, so random guessing should result in 25% correct. It takes only 55% correct to pass the math and 60% to pass the English Language Arts portion. The hardest math questions include algebra, which is an 8th-grade standard in California, but it’s possible to miss all those questions and pass the test. The hardest ELA questions are based on 10th-grade standards. Students can take the exam multiple times, starting in sophomore year. They’re more likely to have trouble passing the math portion. I think it’s because they’re not learning basic math skills.

By: Mark Roulo

Mark Roulo — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 20:09:55 +0000

I always understood the primary purpose of exit exams was to ensure that a H.S. diploma met some minimum threshold of education, and not as a motivational tool.

I think the assumption was that some students who were below the cut-line for earning the diploma would improve their test scores enough to graduate. The ‘motivational tool’ part would be motivating the kids to do better so that they would graduate.

-Mark Roulo

By: Cal

Cal — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:46:50 +0000

The obvious reason that low performing white boys are doing better is because their “low performance” is due not to academic weakness but disengagement in school.