SBCSS News and Press Releases

County Students Show Improvements On Passing Exit Exam

2008-09-09

SAN BERNARDINO - The achievement gap among White, African American and Latino students in San Bernardino County was the lowest it has ever been for the English language arts portion of the California High School Exit Exam, according to data released today by the California Department of Education.

The difference of 16 percentage points between White and African American and Latino 10^th-graders students, who took the statewide exit exam in the 2007-08 school year, was the smallest gap among those county groups in seven years of testing.

"The achievement gap has been persistent and troubling, but these results show a trend of sustained improvement," County Superintendent Gary Thomas said. "The credit goes to our teachers in the classrooms, their students and districts, who have worked tremendously hard to make these improvements."

In addition to a closing in achievement gaps, sophomores in the county who took the exit exam last academic year posted the highest passage rates in mathematics and second-highest rates in English language arts since testing began. Both were improvements from results released for county 10^th-graders last year.

Among the 32,484 county 10^th-graders who took the exam, 73 percent passed the math portion of the exit exam, the highest-ever passage rate. In English language arts, 76 percent passed - the highest level since 2002-03 and second-highest rate ever - an increase of 2 percentage points from last year.

There also have been sustained improvements in closing the achievement gap for subgroups in both English language arts and math over the seven years of testing. During the last three years of testing for African American students in English language arts, the gap has closed with white 10^th graders from 27 percent in 2005-06 to 16 percent for 2007-08. In math, the gap has closed from 31 percent in 2005-06 to 21 percent for 2007-08.

For Latino students, the achievement gap with White 10^th-graders narrowed from 23 percent in 2005-06 to 16 percent in 2007-08 in English language arts. In math, the gap closed from 22 percent in 2005-06 to 15 percent for 2007-08.

For the class of 2009, which will be the fourth class that will have to pass the CAHSEE in order to graduate from high school, an estimated 88 percent of county seniors have passed in ELA and 85 percent in math. The California Department of Education estimates that 90.2 of all seniors have passed both portions of the exit exam.

Among the highlights from the results of the 2007-08 CAHSEE:

The achievement gap of 10^th-grade African American and Latino students in the county closed considerably in comparison to White students. Both African American and Latino students closed the gap 3 percentage points in ELA and 2 percentage points in math.

English language learners in 10^th grade improved 7 percentage points in ELA this year compared to last year's scores. Economically disadvantage 10^th-graders improved 1 point in math and 3 points in ELA over last year.

Among county 10^th-graders, females scored better than males in ELA (80 percent vs. 71 percent), while males did slightly better in math (74 percent vs. 73 percent).

Overall passage rates for county 10^th-graders - 73 percent in math and 76 percent in ELA - were slightly under the state averages (78 percent in math and 79 in ELA). Eight districts - Bear Valley, Chaffey Joint Union High, Chino Valley, Redlands, Rim of the World, Snowline, Upland and Yucaipa - matched or exceeded the state averages in passage rates for both ELA and math.

Download the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) Results for San Bernardino County - 84kpdf

Results of the CAHSEE are available at the California Department of Education's Web site at www.cde.ca.gov.