Exit Exam Comes Down Hard on the Class of 2006

Alma Zavala immigrated four years ago from the Mexican state of Michoacan to Santa Ana, a bustling city dense with new immigrants. Ashley Daigle was reared in Chino Hills, former dairy farm country that is being rapidly developed into tidy subdivisions with names such as Agave and Citrus Commons.

The high school seniors, who grew up in seemingly different worlds, have a common goal: They must pass the state’s new high school exit exam this week or they will be denied diplomas in June. This is the last chance for these teenagers as well as thousands of other seniors across the state who will have completed all of their coursework but still must pass the test to wear a cap and gown and receive a diploma at graduation.

“I think about it every day,” said Ashley, 18. “How can they base your whole high school career on one test?”

Under state legislation approved seven years ago, the class of 2006 must pass the California High School Exit Exam to earn a diploma. The mandatory test was the result of efforts by legislators to standardize the achievement of high school graduates across the state’s 1,053 school districts.

During their sophomore, junior and senior years, students have six chances to take the exam, which includes math and English/language arts. Students must score at least 55% on the math portion, which is eighth-grade level, and 60% on the English, which is ninth- or 10th-grade level.

Alma and Ashley, like thousands of seniors, are cramming for the test. Alma, an English-learner who would be the first in her family to graduate, is in after-school tutoring and Saturday classes to help her pass the English portion. Ashley, a longtime cheerleader who has always been bewildered by math, takes an exam preparation class during the school day and does preparation online.

Students who don’t pass the exam this week can keep taking it until they do, but they will miss receiving diplomas at schools’ graduation ceremonies. Some districts have exam dates in May, and state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell seeks funding to offer the test in July. But students taking May or July exams wouldn’t get their scores until well past the end of the school year -- and commencement ceremonies.

O’Connell, who wrote the exit exam legislation as a state senator, said he believes that more than 90% of California’s nearly 410,000 high school seniors will have passed the exam by graduation. The remainder, he said, can continue earning a diploma by attending a fifth year of high school, adult education classes, community college or an independent study program.

“Not passing the high school exit exam simply means your high school education is not complete,” he said. “It’s important to me that students have the skills necessary for the new global economy. The exit exam is holding students accountable. [In the past] in some schools, the high school diploma was merely a certification of seat time. Today, it’s an accomplishment and an achievement.”

Critics, meanwhile, say O’Connell should have created alternatives to the exit exam and that the test will push out students who otherwise might complete school. In Los Angeles Unified, nearly 6,000 seniors have yet to pass one or both parts of the test.

“It’s a Pandora’s box, and we’re going to open it in [June] 2006,” said state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), a vocal critic of the exam who worries that the test will deliver a crush of dropouts. “At a certain point, the numbers will speak for themselves. I really hope that I’m wrong.”

A lawsuit against the state is pending in San Francisco Superior Court, arguing that the exam creates an unfair hurdle to graduation for students who have met all of the other requirements. But barring the lawsuit’s success or an unlikely reversal in state education policy, the exam will remain a requirement for June graduation.

Nationwide, at least half the states will have mandatory high school exit exams by 2009, although many offer alternatives for students who don’t pass. But the California Board of Education this month rejected alternative assessments, such as student work portfolios.

In the Santa Ana Unified School District, 700-plus seniors, or more than a quarter of the senior class, have yet to pass one or both parts of the exam. Most, like Alma, are English-learners. Unlike special education students, who recently received an exemption allowing them to graduate this year without passing the exam, nonnative English-speakers don’t get a break.

Alma, a quiet 17-year-old with a long ponytail and a worried expression when she contemplates the exam, has a 3.5 grade-point average and belongs to Century High School’s Honor Society. She passed the math section on her first try, but has failed the English portion four times. The essay section is dragging down her score. On Tuesday, she will take the English test a fifth time.

“Almost all my friends are in this situation,” she said.

An older brother, Felipe, is a house painter who works long hours and pays for her school supplies. He has been urging her to study hard for the exam. And Alma hopes to serve as an example to her 14-year-old sister, Rosalinda.

Passing the exam is key to Alma’s dreams of attending Santa Ana College to study nursing and eventually lead a more comfortable life than her parents have, she said. “You get more money” if you graduate, she said.

The stakes are high for students who don’t earn a diploma. Dropouts earn $18,734 a year on average, about one-third less than high school graduates, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Besides her after-school tutoring and prep class on Saturdays, she practices reading comprehension, essay writing and other skills in a workbook at home at least one hour a night.

Some of her classmates say they will drop out if they don’t pass this time. But Alma has vowed to keep taking the test until she succeeds.

“Sometimes, I want to give up,” she said. “But then I think about my family.”

Alma’s mother, Elinda, 45, has a fourth-grade education and makes cakes at a bakery. Her father, Jesus, 56, completed two years of high school and works in a factory. Four years ago, they decided to move their family from a small village near the city of Apatzingan to the United States so their children would have a better future. Now, they are worried that their daughter won’t graduate, and they feel helpless.

Teachers, her mother said in Spanish, “tell me she is an excellent student. But she says this test is just so hard. We are very worried. We want her to pass this test.”

“She’s thrown all her enthusiasm into this. We want her to progress. She’s a woman and I don’t want her to suffer the way I have,” she said.

Ashley, a gregarious only child who gave up cheerleading to buckle down in her senior year, was one question away from passing the math portion of the test the third time she took it. Her principal at Chino Hills High School insisted on telling her personally to cushion the blow.

“I cried,” she said. “It was the worst moment possible.”

Principal Carl Hampton, affectionately called “Hampton” by many students, is a passionate advocate of the exit exam. But “the most heartbreaking thing you can do as a principal is telling a girl like that that she failed,” he said. “I felt like it had to be me to tell her.”

Ashley is among a handful of the school’s 650 seniors who have yet to pass one or both parts of the exam. She is a better-than-average student, earning A’s, Bs and one C this year. But math has always been her nemesis.

“It’s my least favorite subject,” she said. “Something just doesn’t click to me.”

The teen, with highlighted brown hair and dramatic eye shadow, hopes one day to work as a cosmetic artist on Hollywood movie sets. She calls the exit exam unfair, tantamount to changing the rules mid-game.

“I’m pretty upset by it,” she said.

With her test prep class at school and by practicing online, she’s feeling fairly confident she’ll pass the math portion Wednesday.

Her parents, a car dealership owner and a nurse, are unequivocal: Failure is not an option.

“She should have passed the first time,” said Bob Daigle, her father. “She just gets too involved in everything else. She’s a teenager. She works and she likes to play. She doesn’t focus sometimes.... She has to pass this test to graduate. [I tell her,] ‘You better be at the graduation altar there on the 24th, so whatever it takes. It’s imperative. Let’s finish up, and down the road you go.’ ”

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Times staff writer Jennifer Delson contributed to this report.