San Benito County students with disabilities will be able to get
a diploma this spring even if they have not passed the state’s exit
exam that all seniors are required to pass before graduation.
Hollister – San Benito County students with disabilities will be able to get a diploma this spring even if they have not passed the state’s exit exam that all seniors are required to pass before graduation.
The consequences for not passing the exit exams this school year – the first year students will be required to pass the tests to receive a diploma – were delayed by a year when the California Department of Education settled a lawsuit with disability rights advocates last week. Students who fail to pass the language and math sections of the exit exam will not receive a high school diploma.
The state department of education has yet to release statistics showing how many of the 309 special education students at San Benito High School will benefit from the extra year, or how many special education seniors still need to pass both the math and language arts exit exams to graduate.
While local educators were relieved by the ruling, they still want a longer time period for disabled students, many of whom suffer from severe learning disorders and do not possess adequate information processing skills, to pass the tests and predicted there will be more lawsuits on the matter.
The exit exam was created six years ago by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, then a state senator. However the class of 2006 will be the first group of students required to pass the tests in order to graduate. The main goal of the exit exams is to ensure that all public school students meet minimum academic standards, O’Connell said in a press release last week.
The lawsuit will postpone exit exam requirement for students with disabilities for one year, but some local educators say they need more time.
“Part of the problem is many of these students haven’t been exposed to these state standards, they haven’t had a chance to really learn this information,” SBHS Superintendent Jean Burns Slater said. “By the time you get to high school, you can’t pick up eight years of previous learning.”
Karen Schroder, the Director of Special and Alternative Education at San Benito High School District, would like the district to have at least two years to implement changes and revise some of the requirements for individual students before graduation next spring.
The district’s Special Education Department is working hard to make sure all students are exposed to the state standards, she said. Schroder and others will also make sure individual students are allowed to take the exit exams with the modifications they require.
For example, students who struggle with arithmetic skills may need a calculator to complete the math exit exam, Schroder said. Last year, the department focused mainly on getting students to take the test and did not have enough time to make sure each student had the right modifications.
“As a department, we are really addressing the state standards,” Schroder said. “We’re teaching the standards and test-taking techniques and we’re looking at each student and starting to write in the modification and accommodations they need.”
In order to take any test with modifications, the state requires teachers and administrators determine what modifications are required and why they are needed for a student.
“With modifications and accommodations we’ll see many more students pass (the exit exams),” she said.
In the San Benito High School District, the passage rate for disabled students in the class of 2006 – the only class that would be affected by the settlement – is very low. Only 10 percent of the 70 test-takers have passed the math exam and 13 percent have passed the language arts portion of the exam. About 309 students are enrolled in the special education program at San Benito High School, but many have already passed the test. Others are not on track for graduation in 2006 and will not be affected by the settlement. It is not clear how many students will benefit from the delay, Schroder said.
Statewide, the percentage of juniors with disabilities who have passed the exit exams are higher. Results released last month show that 21 percent have passed the math exam and 23 percent have passed the language arts exam.
Slater hopes that recent structural changes in how the school is organized will help improve test scores for students with disabilities. The special education teachers now have offices near all other teachers and are no longer isolated, which Slater believes will lead to increased communication between all teachers. More communication and support will help improve test scores, Slater said.
Exit exam problems are far from over for students with disabilities in districts throughout the state, even with the current extension, County Superintendent of Schools Tim Foley said.
“There have been continuing problems with the implementation of the state exit exam,” Foley said. “Special education students are just one more subgroup that will be penalized by the exit examination.”
He also predicated more lawsuits will be filed in the future regarding the exit exam, by disability rights advocates and others.
Based on exit exam results from the 2004-2005 school year, the California Department of Education has estimated that more than 50 percent of students with disabilities will pass the tests before the end of the current school year. All students will have three more opportunities to pass the exit exams before graduation next spring.
Brett Rowland covers education for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or
br******@fr***********.com
.
