HSEE Hell


Articles Dante Alighieri Arthur Dent Jesus Jones Thomas Paine Other Authors Contact Us! Letter to the Editor Dante Alighieri Arthur Dent Jesus Jones Thomas Paine	HSEE Hell Arthur Dent Two weeks ago, every sophomore took the California High School Exit Exam for the first time. If Terra Nova's track record holds true, it will be the last time many of them see it. For some, however, it is just the beginning of a very long road. Statewide, a mere 48% of high school juniors have passed the HSEE. That means that over half of the Class of 2004 will not be receiving a diploma in 15 months unless they pass the test before then. At Terra Nova, things are quite a bit rosier: nearly every junior has passed the English portion, and about 85% have passed the math portion. This begs two questions: first, what is going so wrong in the rest of the state (or so right at Terra Nova), and second, what will happen to those who have yet to pass the test? The first thing to realize about the HSEE is that everyone takes the same test. That means that a student who has recently arrived in California from, say, Peru, has to take the same test in English that a student who was born here must take. TN offers no ESL (English as a Second Language) classes, so every student here is presumably fluent in English. That explains our outstanding pass-rate on the English portion compared to many areas of the state or even the other high schools in our district. The few students who have yet to pass the English portion of the exam are primarily special education students who are struggling on both portions. Although special education students may receive some accommodations when they take the test (meaning that they may have questions read aloud to them or they may use a calculator, depending on what is specified in their IEP), they must take the same test as every other student wishing to receive a diploma. However, receiving testing accommodations, even those specified in writing in the student's approved Individual Education Plan, means that the student has to petition the school board for a diploma. Some of the students who have yet to pass the math portion of the HSEE have learning disabilities which make algebra quite difficult. It isn't their fault, and yet they may be denied a diploma because of it. So what's to be done? Do we throw out the exam because so many students cannot pass it, or do we deny diplomas to 52% of the Class of 2004? At Terra Nova, the approach seems to be to not worry about it. After all, our students are doing fine…except for those 40 juniors who haven't passed the math portion. We have yet to see any special classes on campus to help them pass the test: are we going to just keep testing them and hope the problem goes away, or are we going to deviate from past history and actually address a problem head-on? We need basic math classes on campus which will help those students learn the math they need so that they can pass the test. Algebra is difficult when you never really learned how to do fractions, and yet there is no math class on campus designed to address a student's short-comings in basic math. Even the California Department of Education's HSEE website says, "Students at risk of not passing, or who have not passed one or both parts of the test, are to be offered supplemental instruction that provides remediation in the content area(s) of difficulty." So where is that "supplemental instruction"? The State, in its infinite wisdom, has decreed that all freshmen shall take algebra, even if they can't divide. This is the same State which now expects all of these students to pass a test for which they are unprepared because they have been denied access to the curriculum they need. No one around here is really "remedial," are they? Oh no…we're all the next Einstein; some of us just can't pass the test to prove it.	Archive Back Issues Why? Cartoons Poetry Random Rants Disclaimers Losers and Kudos of the Week Letters to the Editor Editor's Notes Picture of the Week
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Arthur Dent

Two weeks ago, every sophomore took the California High School Exit Exam for the first time. If Terra Nova's track record holds true, it will be the last time many of them see it. For some, however, it is just the beginning of a very long road.

Statewide, a mere 48% of high school juniors have passed the HSEE. That means that over half of the Class of 2004 will not be receiving a diploma in 15 months unless they pass the test before then. At Terra Nova, things are quite a bit rosier: nearly every junior has passed the English portion, and about 85% have passed the math portion. This begs two questions: first, what is going so wrong in the rest of the state (or so right at Terra Nova), and second, what will happen to those who have yet to pass the test?

The first thing to realize about the HSEE is that everyone takes the same test. That means that a student who has recently arrived in California from, say, Peru, has to take the same test in English that a student who was born here must take. TN offers no ESL (English as a Second Language) classes, so every student here is presumably fluent in English. That explains our outstanding pass-rate on the English portion compared to many areas of the state or even the other high schools in our district. The few students who have yet to pass the English portion of the exam are primarily special education students who are struggling on both portions. Although special education students may receive some accommodations when they take the test (meaning that they may have questions read aloud to them or they may use a calculator, depending on what is specified in their IEP), they must take the same test as every other student wishing to receive a diploma. However, receiving testing accommodations, even those specified in writing in the student's approved Individual Education Plan, means that the student has to petition the school board for a diploma. Some of the students who have yet to pass the math portion of the HSEE have learning disabilities which make algebra quite difficult. It isn't their fault, and yet they may be denied a diploma because of it.

So what's to be done? Do we throw out the exam because so many students cannot pass it, or do we deny diplomas to 52% of the Class of 2004? At Terra Nova, the approach seems to be to not worry about it. After all, our students are doing fine…except for those 40 juniors who haven't passed the math portion. We have yet to see any special classes on campus to help them pass the test: are we going to just keep testing them and hope the problem goes away, or are we going to deviate from past history and actually address a problem head-on? We need basic math classes on campus which will help those students learn the math they need so that they can pass the test. Algebra is difficult when you never really learned how to do fractions, and yet there is no math class on campus designed to address a student's short-comings in basic math. Even the California Department of Education's HSEE website says, "Students at risk of not passing, or who have not passed one or both parts of the test, are to be offered supplemental instruction that provides remediation in the content area(s) of difficulty." So where is that "supplemental instruction"? The State, in its infinite wisdom, has decreed that all freshmen shall take algebra, even if they can't divide. This is the same State which now expects all of these students to pass a test for which they are unprepared because they have been denied access to the curriculum they need. No one around here is really "remedial," are they? Oh no…we're all the next Einstein; some of us just can't pass the test to prove it.