Officials unhappy with exam delay

Deepa Bharath

Local school district officials said they are disappointed by the

state Board of Education’s unanimous vote on Wednesday to postpone

the high school exit requirement for two years.

The board voted 9 to 0 to require the class of 2006 to pass the

standardized test to get a diploma, saying that not all students have

been prepared to take the test.

Over the last three years, teachers and school officials have

motivated Newport-Mesa Unified students to pass the test, said Jaime

Castellanos, assistant superintendent of secondary education.

“We’ve done a good job of getting the attention of our students

about this exam,” he said. “It was not perfect, but it worked because

it gave our students a benchmark to shoot for.”

Under the 1999 law, the class of 2004 was supposed to be the first

that would have to pass the California High School Exit Exam to

graduate. Students have eight chances to take the test during their

high school years.

The exam -- one day of math and two days of English tests -- is

aligned with the academic standards California adopted in 1997.

But now that the test has been put on hold, “we’ll have to start

all over again in two years,” Castellanos said.

“It won’t set us back too much, but it’s definitely extra work for

us,” he said.

A majority of Newport-Mesa students had passed the exit exam,

Castellanos said.

“For those students who had trouble with the test, we had

after-school and summer school programs to help them prepare,” he

said.

The test also served as a yardstick to measure students’

proficiency in language arts and mathematics, he said.

“[The board] has really thrown a curve ball at us,” he said,

“because now we need to look for an option to assess how our students

are mastering the standards.”