SARC BITE 8

Does the High School Exit Exam Belong in Your SARCs?

The bad news today is that half of the students of the class of 2004 have not passed both portions of their high school exit exam. That's after at least two administrations of the test. This is page-one news today. But does it belong in your schools annual accountability reports tomorrow?

The good news is that it's up to you. The policy recommendations of the CDE's SARC working committee are clear. The high school exit exam is not yet a required part of the SARC. But it will be required in 2004 when the class of 2004 is in its senior year.

In the meantime, you're entirely on the safe side of the Ed Code in omitting the high school exit exam (CAHSEE) from your SARCs. This eases your burden considerably, given the complexity of reporting on a test whose results only make sense when presented cumulatively for one graduating class at a time.

But you still face a challenge this year far greater than before in reporting the California Standards Tests. So no one is getting off easily. (There will be more on that in the next newsletter.) No doubt, your plate is already full. If you are creating SARCs for high schools, you have a handful of test results to present already.

• College entrance exam (SAT-I): verbal and math
• Stanford-9: reading, math, science and social studies
• California Standards Test: English/language arts, math (8 course specific tests), history/social science (3 course specific tests), science (4 course specific tests)

So count your blessings. All that time you would have had to spend decrypting the high school exit exam, you can now devote to presenting and interpreting this bushel basket of exams (and their related disaggregated results) instead.

If you want background on the exit exam — research reports, opinions, other states' policies — you can start with this page in our Virtual Library.

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