By Anna Real
Staff Writer
The California High School Exit Exam is a helpful test that is required to take in order to graduate. The test was designed by the California Department of Education and assesses students in the areas of reading, writing, and mathematics and is a good representation of a student’s graduation potential.
The CAHSEE is a test that all sophomores are required to take. Recently, 2% of the Costa students, according to Dr. Dale, haven’t been passing the test, which has lowered the school’s ranking. The lower ranking has affected Costa students by having less impressive college resumes and gives the school less benefits and a worse reputation.
The lowering in rank is logical punishment because students and educators from other schools worked harder than Mira Costa towards this exam and deserve a better ranking. Not to mention, some people who don’t pass do not understand the information on the test, making it the fault of the education system for failing to teach the curriculum. However, this affects the students because their school might not seem as impressive to colleges and the school will have a bad reputation.
The CAHSEE is a good representation of a student’s skills because, according to Dr. Ben Dale, 98% of Mira Costa students pass and of those, 89% earned high scores in the 80 or 90 percentile. The test was created to help students with different learning levels and accurately displays Mira Costa students’ knowledge. Student ability is also shown in this test due to the fact that Mira Costa has a higher graduation rate than the California average, according to Public School Review.
According to Dale, there is not a certain type of student that are not passing the exam, which makes it hard to recognize students who need assistance. Based on the test’s reputation of being easy, the students that did not pass possibly failed the test because they did not take it seriously. If that’s the case, some students are not passing the CAHSEE exam is not the educators fault but their own.
Mira Costa is trying to help the problem by identifying the students who need more help in English and Math and assist them early in their freshman year, according to Dale. This method is smart because it is a more efficient way of getting students the help they need.
In 2012, Mira Costa was ranked the 72nd best school in California, but dropped to 81st place by 2014 according to the Manhattan Beach Patch. The way that the school is being reprimanded by having a lower ranking is completely appropriate to the situation. A school ranking is a reflection of the education system, and if only 98% of students are passing this exam instead of 100%, then it reflects that Costa’s education system is probably not as good as the schools higher ranked.
Although the low test scores are the fault of students, the ranking should not be taken from a test that is only taken by sophomores and not the whole school. The whole school should not be punished for one grade’s mistakes. However, according the Mira Costa High School Accountability Report Card, in 2011, Mira Costa scored about 20-30% higher than the California average. Mira Costa’s scores show that lower rank or not, Mira Costa is still an excellent school and reaches an above average education.
Students are not passing the California High School Exit Exam because they either do not take the test very seriously or the education system has failed to teach them. The curriculum in the CAHSEE is a good representation of basic skills since it was designed for all levels of students and tests on basic English and Math. Mira Costa’s lower rank is a fair punishment since other high schools have better test scores than Mira Costa.
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