The Roosevelt Institution
Improving California's exit exam for English learners
OPINION
Laura Wentworth McCloskey
Maria Lizet Ocampo
6/20/06
There is something wrong with our educational system when Liliana Valenzuela, a high-school senior with a 3.84 grade-point average and ranked 12th in her high-school class, cannot pass the English portion of the California high school exit exam.
In 2001, California instituted an exam and required that all students pass it in order to graduate from high school. The authors of this exit exam intended to benefit everyone by raising standards and adding value to a California high-school diploma. While the exam has its benefits, its deficiencies unfairly impact the large population of students learning English in California -- students such as Valenzuela.
At Stanford University's School of Education, we analyzed California's policy for assessing students learning English. We found that 1 out of every 4 students learning English did not pass California's exit exam and will not be able to graduate. We also found that the design of California's exit exam and the way it is administered potentially account for the large number of English learners failing to pass. California's exam falls short in many areas when compared to other states' more comprehensive exit exams and recent research findings.
Unlike most states, California does not provide appropriate accommodations for students learning English. Research has found that allowing the use of a customized dictionary ensures the exam measures students' knowledge of content, not just the English proficiency. For example, when an exit-exam question about algebra has an overwhelming amount of language, rather than just a mathematical equation, questions are no longer testing students' skills and knowledge in math, but instead judge students on their command of English. In this case, accommodations would help English learners clarify questions. In Massachusetts and Minnesota, for example, students may use bilingual dictionaries and word-to-word definitions. Students from these other states generally score higher than California students on national tests. Instead of giving other students an unfair advantage, California could level the playing field for students learning English with more appropriate exam accommodations.
To properly manage the use of accommodations on exit exams, California needs to do better at classifying students as English learners. California uses a test not based on the latest advances in research to assess students' English skills. The test only assesses "social English," that is, the language students use when talking on the playground or at home. Other states, such as Delaware, Wisconsin, and Illinois, whose students score higher on national tests than California, use language assessments based on state academic standards that test students' knowledge of English used at home and school. This gives schools a better understanding of how much academic English these students know and whether or not they are prepared to take the exit exam.
California hired an independent team of researchers to make sure its exit exam met high standards, but California has yet to follow a key part of the research team's advice: make sure the exit exam is user-friendly for all students.
Research has found that California's exit exam has areas where bias, design flaws and complex language may lead to confusion on the part of students learning English. To reduce these flaws, California could make adjustments to the exam, such as modifying unnecessarily complex or biased language and improving the organization and presentation of the test questions. These adjustments could make California's exit exam better for all students, including students learning English.
Changes to California's exit exam will take the state one step closer to benefiting students like Liliana Valenzuela, who is striving to achieve the goal of graduating from high school. Without improvements, however, the deficiencies of California's exit exam leave behind students learning English. To support English learners and the goal of high academic standards, California urgently needs to use information provided by other states' experience and academic research to make its exam more fair and appropriate for all students.
Laura Wentworth McCloskey and Maria Lizet Ocampo are both students at Stanford University's School of Education master's program. They are also education fellows with the Roosevelt Institution, the nation's first student think tank (www.rooseveltinstitution.org).
Click here to read the article from the San Francisco Chronicle's website.