Lesson for a Math Teacher

July 15, 2008 by dave

This San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece by Claudia Ayers, a retired math teacher, caught my attention. Claudia connected the recent Algebra decision with the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE).

It isn't absurd enough that we test high school students with a High School Exit Exam that is pretty much on a par with the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) required of teachers, but now we are all congratulating ourselves with a decision to test eighth graders for algebra. At least state schools chief Jack O'Connell has learned from his own past mistakes and opposed this decision. If only he had the guts to say he blew it on advocating for the exit exam, which is not only a complete waste of tens of millions of dollars, but sends more and more kids into the streets and trouble with the law when they fail to graduate because they do not test as well as others. (About 10 percent of high school students must "fail," otherwise it isn't a "test.")

This first paragraph started my alarm bells ringing loudly. The first point she made was that the CAHSEE "is pretty much on a par with the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) required of teachers." Doesn't the CAHSEE test 8/9th grade math and 10th grade language arts? No wonder our students are having difficulty in passing the CAHSEE if their teachers are only skilled enough to pass this minimal test. Since the "B" in the test's name stands for "Basic", I think we probably should expect more from our teachers. This test just verifies basic skills.

The second problem with the paragraph is the assumption that "more and more kids" are being sent into the street by the CAHSEE. Certainly, having a bar for graduation is going to cause some students to not receive a high-school diploma who would have previously done so. The evaluation of the CAHSEE by HumRRO found that the graduation rate only dropped by 4 percentage points after CAHSEE implementation. That's a pretty small change. Other reviews of CAHSEE results found that the vast majority of students who didn't pass the CAHSEE also didn't meet other requirements for graduation such as being short of credits, missing required courses, etc.

The final comment, "About 10 percent of high school students must 'fail', otherwise it isn't a 'test.'" is completely wrong. In days past, when we used primarily norm-referenced tests, which are graded on a curve, we did have expectations about a certain percentage of students failing. Criterion-referenced tests, such as the CAHSEE, are strictly pass/fail, so all students can pass the test if they score above the passing threshold. Since the test is at the 8/9/10th grade level, isn't it reasonable to expect our high school seniors to pass it before receiving a diploma?

The only good news from this opinion piece is that Claudia is retired. At least she's not teaching our children any longer. We need fewer teachers like Claudia and more teachers that are focused on getting all of their students to grade-level, every year. If students are at grade-level every year, when they get to high school, they'll be prepared to pass the CAHSEE and prepared to enter college or the world of work.

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