California Dropouts Increase in First Year of Exit Exam

The number of California high school dropouts jumped in 2006, the first year seniors were required to pass the state’s exit exam to graduate, according to a recent report. California’s high school graduation rate also fell by about 4 percent from the previous year reports the Associated Press. 
The analysis found that 24,000 high school seniors dropped out in 2006, about 10,000 more than just four years earlier.  The firm that prepared the report, Human Resources Research Organization of Alexandria, Va., made seven recommendations to the board, including a suggestion that California explore other ways for high school seniors to demonstrate proficiency.
In Massachusetts and Washington state, for example, students can be judged on a portfolio of their high school work. The report also highlighted California’s persistent achievement gap and also found another problem: students who are black, Hispanic, poor or learning English did even worse when they were in schools with high concentrations of similar students.
Among the other recommendations:  The state should do a better job tracking the students who don’t pass the exam in time to graduate and don’t keep taking it, as a way to see what happens to them; School districts should consider moving more students with disabilities into regular classrooms so they have more exposure to the material tested on the exit exam and a greater opportunity to pass it.
The study also incorporated results of the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress, which showed that California’s fourth-graders rank 48th in reading and 46th in math. Meanwhile, eighth-graders ranked 47th in reading and 45th in math.
Researchers also included reports on the percentage of 12th-graders enrolling in four-year colleges, which found that the rate of enrollment put California ahead of only Mississippi and Arizona. California’s high school graduation rate of 66 percent also is well below the national average, and researchers found an unequal distribution of qualified teachers and classroom sizes –particularly in intensely minority schools. 

— Teachers of Color