RSS Feed
Print Story
E-mail Story
Direct money to early grades
By fourth grade some children can be predicted to fail the high school exit exam. Tutoring must begin earlier.
| Wednesday, Jun 18 2008 5:39 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, Jun 19 2008 10:38 AM
Graduation might be too lofty a goal for some high school students. That's the alarming conclusion of a new study that looks at funding for tutoring programs tied to the California High School Exit Examination. Those funds might be better spent elsewhere — like the primary grades, according to the report by the Public Policy Institute of California.
BAKERSFIELD.COM HOT TOPICS:
Loading Stories
Advertisement
"By law, current funding for tutoring those at risk of failing the CAHSEE is targeted at those in grade 12 and beyond," the report says. "But is this the best use of limited resources?"
PPI researchers, using the San Diego Unified School District as a test case, declared it is not. They were able to predict who would and would not pass the CAHSEE as early as the fourth grade based primarily on grade-point average.
Meanwhile, remedial steps for high schoolers who failed the exit exam on their first attempt had an extremely low success rate.
But the Legislature, through Assembly Bill 128, has focused on tutoring students who have reached the 12th grade without passing the CAHSEE. AB 347, passed into law in October 2007, does much the same thing.
The report's authors concluded that more CAHSEE funding should go to K-8 tutoring. Among their suggestions:
* Develop an "early warning" system to forecast which elementary or middle school students could be at risk of not passing the CAHSEE.
* Consider additional tutoring funds for elementary and middle school students at risk of failing the exam. Allow districts more flexibility in how they spend AB 128 and AB 347 funds.
* Align these additional funds with No Child Left Behind supplemental service funds for tutoring students at schools that repeatedly fail to make "adequate yearly progress."
* Commission rigorous statewide studies of the effect of AB 128 and AB 347 funding on outcomes for seniors and post- senior year students.
* Consider additional academic support directed at the many students who marginally pass the CAHSEE.
The study's revelations should be useful to every school district in the state, but the biggest problem with its conclusions is that high school districts won't be interested in sharing CAHSEE tutoring funds with elementary school districts.
In areas of California with unified school districts, that will be less a problem. But Kern County has the Kern High School District (grades 9-12) and the Bakersfield City School District (grades K-8), the largest districts of their respective types in the state, along with the Panama Buena-Vista Union School District (K-8), another of the state's largest, and many other smaller districts. Districts aren't likely to be sharing "their" state funding.
The study's recommendations require a legislative solution. If CAHSEE preparation is best initiated in the primary grades, Sacramento must provide K-8 districts with the resources.
The state exit exam is still relatively new. Educators should be willing to tinker with students' preparation for the test, as well as its content and administration, as they learn more.