Another 4,500 Pass High School Exit Exam

By Shirley Dang, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.

Jun. 1–More than 4,500 additional high school seniors will graduate this year after passing the exit exam, the state Department of Education reported today.

The new results include scores from the March test.

Slightly more than 90 percent of the state’s 436,200 seniors have passed the exam, which covers eighth-grade math and sophomore English.

Close to 10 percent, or 41,758 students, have failed. Not all of them would have graduated since many lack credits or missed other graduation hurdles.

However, an estimated 2 to 5 percent of all seniors won’t pick up a diploma solely because they flunked the test, State Superintendent of Schools Jack O’Connell said in a press release.

That means that between roughly 9,000 and 22,000 seniors will not graduate with their class because of the test, though some districts are allowing students who met other graduation requirements to participate in commencement.

“We must make sure that each of those students has every option available to continue with their education,” O’Connell said in the statement.

He encouraged students who failed the test to enroll in summer school or adult school, or come back to high school for a fifth year and take the test again.

O’Connell wrote the 1999 legislation that created the test. The exam was to first take effect in 2004. However after significant failure rates, the state delayed holding students to the test until this year.

The state is expected to release test scores for the May test in mid-July, around the same time a state Court of Appeal will hear oral arguments in a lawsuit over the test.

Shirley Dang covers education. Reach her at 925-977-8418 or sdang@cctimes.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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