Spring 2003

Table of Contents

Cal-Tax Home

Email Editor

Guest Commentary 

Kirk Clark is vice president of the California Business Roundtable and executive director of California Business for Education Excellence (CBEE), a group created by major California businesses and business organizations to restore excellence to California’s education system.

In the past few years, California has taken some basic but important steps to improve its public schools by establishing clear and challenging goals for learning, measuring progress to make sure goals are met, and holding schools accountable for results. The business community has been a leading voice in support of this common-sense plan for school improvement and instrumental in bringing to California one of the more effective reforms of public education in the nation. However, after years of preparation, we are facing some of the first major tests of reform and continue to encounter a concerted assault on the state's school improvement efforts.

Although they initially supported the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE), the California Teachers Association (CTA) is sponsoring legislation, Assembly Bill 356 authored by Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) and co-authored by Gene Mullin (D-San Mateo), which proposes to abolish the requirement of high school seniors to pass the state-adopted, standards-aligned exam in order to receive a diploma. The measure would also eliminate the Governor's Performance Award Program for schools that meet their annual Academic Performance Index (API) target growth and the consequences for those that do not.

California High School Exit Exam

Signed into law in 1999, the CAHSEE was part of Governor Davis’ education reform package and is a key component of the state’s testing and accountability system. The primary purpose of the exam is to significantly improve student achievement in public high schools and ensure that students who graduate from public high schools can demonstrate grade-level competency in reading, writing, and mathematics. The exam, which is directly tied to the state’s academic content standards, also ensures the public and businesses that students graduating from high school have some of the basic skills needed to compete in today's competitive workforce.

Beginning in the 2003-04 school year, all students will have to pass the CAHSEE in order to receive a public high school diploma, as well as having to meet the district's requirements for graduation. The exam tests reading and writing at about the 10^th-grade level, and math at roughly the sixth-and seventh-grade levels. Students begin taking the exam in the 10^th grade and can pass with scores of 55 percent in math and 60 percent in English-language arts. Those who fail either segment have up to seven more opportunities to pass it before completing their senior year.

Currently, 17 states require students to pass exit or end-of-course exams to receive a high school diploma with seven more, including California, planning to do so in the future.

Standards, Assessment & Accountability

For over a decade, schools, states and national policy-makers have focused increasingly on improving the level of academic achievement of all students. Prior to that time, most school systems awarded diplomas based on Carnegie Units, which generally represented “seat time” as opposed to a demonstration of essential knowledge and skills. Under the Carnegie, or credit-based system, postsecondary institutions and employers had difficulty determining what students had learned as course content varied from school to school.

In an attempt to raise the level of student learning across the board and create a more publicly accountable education system, states, school districts and national organizations began the process of articulating content standards to define what all students should know and be able to do. In California and across the country, standards now are the driving force in efforts to improve equity and excellence. California has laid a solid foundation for educational improvement focusing on rigorous standards, quality instruction to those standards and materials aligned to them. Part of this system is the CAHSEE which is now acting as an impetus for school districts to take the state academic content standards seriously. Now more than ever, as our assessment and accountability systems are fully aligned to state standards, it is important to maintain focus on the standards-based reforms that are helping our students succeed.

In 1996, only 14 states had standards. Today, 49 states have both standards and assessment systems to measure achievement of those standards.

High School Students Lack Basic Skills

The need for the CAHSEE is simple: too many students graduate from high school unprepared for the challenges that lie ahead. It is estimated that U.S. businesses and institutions of higher education spend $16 billion on remedial education and training each year. The California State University system provides remedial training in reading, writing, or mathematics to half of its incoming freshmen. The business community tells a similar story with 34 percent of job applicants tested by major U.S. firms in 2001 lacking sufficient reading and math skills to do the jobs that they sought.

Broad Public Support

The public welcomes changes that set higher expectations for students and ensure that all students and schools are accountable for performance. In a recent poll conducted by the California Business for Education Excellence Foundation, 78 percent of those polled think the CAHSEE is a good idea, with 92 percent saying that kids should meet a common standard as a requirement for graduation.

Rewards & Consequences

AB 356 would also dismantle some of the key accountability and incentive measures that the business community has fought to get enacted over the past decade in California. For schools and students to reap the benefits of standards-based reform, we need appropriate incentives and consequences. We must continue to hold both students and schools accountable for results by having clear, predictable rewards and consequences for meeting expectations and for addressing chronic poor performance.

Where is the Bill?

AB 356 passed its first hurdle in the Assembly Education committee and is likely to be approved by the Appropriations Committee in the coming weeks. While AB 356 is moving through the Legislature, the state Board of Education is reviewing the fairness of the exam and deciding whether to stick to the current timetable of having the class of 2004 pass the exam in order to receive a diploma. The board has until August 1 to determine whether to postpone implementation of the graduation requirement.  A key factor in their decision will hinge on an independent assessment of the exam, which was mandated by the Legislature two years ago and must be completed by May 1. This assessment is to be presented to the state board in the coming weeks.

California Must Stay the Course

Legislative proposals like AB 356 represent a major step backward for the education improvement effort in California and must be stopped. California spends $52 billion on education annually and taxpayers have the right to know how schools and students are performing.

As business leaders, we know first hand that statewide education improvements do not happen overnight, and accountability cannot be secured in just a one-year plan of action. The progress we make in the coming year in defending and implementing these and other reforms will be vitally important in determining how effective they will be in the future. We must stay the course. State and local policy-makers must resist the temptation to tinker with existing reforms and let them stand the test of time. Doing anything less only cheats students out of what they need to succeed.