You Mean Y'all Were Serious About That Whole Exit Exam Thing?

Meet Juan Calderon. Juan is a senior at Hiram Johnson Senior High School in the city of Sacramento, California. Juan looks dejected in this photo because Juan just found out he won't be graduating from high school because he has yet again, failed the state exit exam. Starting with this year's graduating class, California students who wish to graduate from high school with a diploma must pass the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE). This exam, which is designed to show an eighth grade proficiency in reading, writing, and math, has become the bane of approximately 20% of California's high school seniors. Even though they only have to demonstrate the knowledge of an eighth grader, these seniors have been unable to pass the exit exam, even though they are given several chances to pass it, beginning in their sophomore year.

This photo of Juan accompanied a front-page story in the Sacramento Bee (you may have to register to read it) that is one of a continuing series of stories about the struggles that numerous high school students are experiencing in trying to pass the CAHSEE. In addition to Juan, the story profiled another senior at Hiram Johnson, named Kevin Muhammad, who also failed the exam. Kevin's quote about his feelings on the matter kind of sum up part of the reason he had trouble passing the exam, especially the reading/writing portion. Kevin said:

"That ain't my goal, to go to no night school and not walk the stage," said Kevin Muhammad, 17. "Everyone wants to see me walk the stage and get my diploma."

Kevin has worked hard to prepare for the exam and his math score shows it, jumping 18 points since he took the test last March. But the new score was still short - by only 3 points.

"I was just mad," Kevin said. "I ain't tripping about math, I got close on that. But the English and reading, though ... ."

As you can see, Kevin's grammar is atrocious. Do you think he can write any better than he speaks?

I can tell you some of the reasons for the 20% failure rate: Students simply did not take this requirement seriously. As they have been experiencing quite often in their pampered lives, many of these failing students believed that when it came down to brass tacks, they wouldn't be held accountable for the CAHSEE. They thought they would be given a pass, or a wink-wink. They might have thought that there would be more legal challenges and the requirement to pass the CAHSEE would be delayed once again. And even more sadly, many students didn't even know about the CAHSEE in the first place until it was too late; I know this personally.

After reading this story over breakfast, I took my copy of the Bee with me to work and started off each period that day, going over the story with my 7th grade students. The first thing I asked them was if they had ever heard of the California High School Exit Exam. The vast majority of my students had never heard of it. Think about that: they are in the 7th grade. What they are learning both this year, and next year, will be the very information on which they will be tested when they take the CAHSEE in high school, yet most of them didn't even know the exam exists. When I explained to my students that they were required to pass the CAHSEE and that what they are currently learning is what would dominate the exam, I saw quite a few worried looks and ashen faces. It was the look of accountability and responsibility on the faces of children who have never been held accountable for anything in their whole life. I walked around the room and showed each student the photo of young Juan Calderon and told them that this is what it looks like when reality comes crashing down around you. I told them that this is what it looks like when you blow something off, and yet it doesn't go away.

I have plenty of students who will pass the CAHSEE on their first try as sophomores. But I have way too many students who have blown off school for seven or eight years now, and now even that they know about this CAHSEE requirement, it is too late for them to catch up.

I have little sympathy for the students who fail the CAHSEE, with one exception. If you look at the way many of them are coddled by their parents and coddled by their schools, no matter how disruptive or lazy they are, it seems a little disingenuous to suddenly start holding them accountable for something this important. If no one ever taught you to read, and then you had War and Peace plopped in front of you, I'm sure you would feel overwhelmed too. So that is my reason, but it is not an excuse for these students. At some point, you have to take control of your own education and say, "I am going to learn, in spite of any shortcomings my school or my friends may have."

I freely admit that I didn't work to my potential in high school. I blew off homework assignments and classwork, and ended up with a 3.1 GPA instead of the 3.8 or even 4.0 of which I was certainly capable. The difference is that I more than made up for this with my intellectual curiosity outside of school. During summer vacation, you would find me spending many a day buried in my parents' vast collection of books as I read them voraciously. No one assigned these books for me to read; I read them because I enjoyed learning what I wanted to learn. The problem I see with this current generation of students is that I see little to no intellectual curiosity in them whatsoever. They would rather have their kneecaps broken than read a book. And yes, yes, I know they love to read Harry Potter and such. You see that all the time: parents and educators insisting there is nothing wrong with the reading ability of our kids because they read Harry Potter. The problem is that you need to read a lot more than that to educate yourself on your own. I read a kid-friendly collection of biographies of historical people that my mother had as a child. I learned about the lives and accomplishments of David Crockett, Mozart, Ben Franklin, George Custer, Marco Polo, and many others, while simultaneously learning about the historical events that framed their lives. I read my parents' Time Life World War II series, the book series on the history of flight, their book series about the natural world, the Old West. I don't believe myself to be exaggerating when I say that when I graduated from high school, I probably had the equivalent of a Bachelor's Degree in History, having learned 90% of my knowledge on my own, and outside of the classroom.

I am totally in favor of the CAHSEE. I don't think it is fair for the Valedictorian to receive the very same diploma that many other students also receive but cannot even read. The biggest problem I have with the CAHSEE is that it doesn't even test students' knowledge on anything that they even learned in high school. Like I said, it tests at the eighth grade level. But if students are going to truly be held accountable for this exam, then our school system needs to drastically change. It needs to become a place where disruptive students are made gone and stay gone. It needs to be a place where real phonics are reintroduced at the primary level rather than the whole language charlatanism and so-called balanced approach to teaching reading that still reign in our elementary schools. Until that happens, too many students are going to be held to a standard for which they were not properly prepared. Continuing to raise standards won't cut it; we have to make schools places of real learning again.

Good Day to You, Sir