State high school exam back on track

This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press February 22, 2001

By JENNIFER KERR
Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO - One day after the state Senate voted to delay Gov. Gray Davis' high school graduation test for a year, the Assembly Education Committee reluctantly decided not to delay it - at least not now.

The Senate's vote Tuesday had created confusion for ninth-graders who are scheduled to take the test for the first time in two weeks.

The last minute decision also left Antelope Valley Union High School District administrators in limbo. District officials were hoping for the delay in order to give them time to work with elementary districts in hopes of accelerating the learning process before the students are faced with taking the first exams in the ninth-grade.

The high district board of trustees was scheduled to listen to a report on the High School Exit Exam at Wednesday's meeting.

Susan Custer, director of special programs for the district, was to present background information, legal and curricular implications about the exit exam during the meeting. No action was planned.

The Senate amendment would have postponed the test until the class of 2005, today's eighth-graders.

The Assembly committee voted 10-0 Wednesday to remove the Senate amendment. However, several committee members said they share senators' concerns that students will not be ready for the test's tough questions, particularly in algebra.

"I can't vote for this as long as I'm not sure there are algebra teachers," said Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, who abstained.

The committee chair, Assemblywoman Virginia Strom-Martin, said she would like in the future to consider a separate bill to postpone the test.

"If we're not teaching these courses, if we're not effectively planning for this, it doesn't make any sense at all, especially for the kids, to make them pass this test," said Strom-Martin, a former teacher and a Duncans Mills Democrat.

The confusion arose because the Senate Education Committee last month voted to postpone the test, over Davis' objections, in a bill in which the governor had sought to make a relatively minor change in the March testing.

The 1999 law said the class of 2004 would be the first that must pass the test to graduate. That law said ninth-graders could take the test voluntarily this spring and if they passed, they would not have to take it again.

However, late last year Davis proposed making the March test only a practice test for the ninthgraders, to make it more likely to withstand legal challenges.

Making the March test a practice one requires the Legislature to pass a bill before the first test date, March 7.

However, when Davis' practicetest bill went before the Senate Education Committee last month, senators added the amendment postponing the entire test for one year. A consulting group hired by the state to monitor the test had made that recommendation last summer, saying students are not likely to be prepared.

Courts in other states with similar high-stakes tests have said students cannot be tested if they have not have a chance to learn the material. More than a third of current high school graduates have not taken algebra. A new law requires algebra to graduate, beginning also with the class of 2004.

Davis' education secretary, Kerry Mazzoni, told the Assembly committee Wednesday that it was important to return the bill to its original form to make the March test a practice exam.

"The discussion on postponing the test is for later," she said.

Mazzoni said the ninth-graders who take the test next month, their parents and their schools all can use the test results to see what they need to learn before they take the test for real.