The
California High School Exit Exam is a critical gatekeeper for students who
struggle academically. Failing to pass the CAHSEE during the initial administration in the tenth grade has significant impacts on students’
opportunities to prepare for post-secondary educational options. In addition to
CAHSEE being a requirement for receiving a high-school diploma, failing to pass
the exam often puts students into a remedial academic track limiting access to
higher level English, math, and science courses. Successful completion of
higher-level courses in high school is a proven and requisite measure
of college preparedness. Across the state of California, CAHSEE passing
rates have been intractably linked to race throughout the history of the exam:
On average, White and Asian students have higher passing rates,
while African American and Hispanic/Latino students have lower passing
rates. Similar patterns have been seen in our school district.
Historical CAHSEE English Language Arts Passing Rates by ASI:
Using analysis of
historical performance data to guide intervention, we were able to significantly increase the first time passing
rates of academically at-risk African American and Hispanic/Latino
students. A combination of screens that targeted students with an
Academic Support Index of three or higher in conjunction with results from
a standards-based tenth grade assessment given during the first week of school
was used to identify and assign 44 students to an alternative testing
environment. While the majority of student took the exam in the school
gymnasium, the intervention group tested in a setting consisting of a later
start time, proctors with whom they were familiar, and an academically more
homogeneous population. This intervention resulted in higher passing
rates (98% for English Language Arts and 93% for Math) than both the control
(84% for ELA and 89% for Math) and the school overall (91% for ELA and 91% for
Math). The intervention passing rates for the ELA test were statistically
significant versus the control. The results can be seen on the table below. IEP refers to students with Individualized Education Plans (Special Education). ELN refers to students who are new to speaking English (less than 12 months).
Although none of the screens looked solely for students’ race, the intervention group was made up entirely of non-white students. The higher passing rates for the intervention group increased the school-wide passing rates on the English Language Arts test for African-American students by eleven percentage points (13% over the running three year average) and six percentage points for Hispanic/Latino students over the prior year. Thus, we were able to interrupt the racialized predictability of passing rates on the CAHSEE during the 2015 census administration using the Academic Support Index.
Note how the overall correlation coefficient (r squared) dropped significantly during the 2015 year when the interventions were initiated. This is evidence that we were able to reduce the predicability of student outcomes on this exam.
Click here to see the poster we presented at the California Educational Research Association in December of 2015.
Click here to see the poster we presented at the California Educational Research Association in December of 2015.