SBCSS News and Press Releases

County Students Continue Growth On Passing Exit Exam

2009-09-02

SAN BERNARDINO - The percentage of 10th-grade San Bernardino County students who passed the mathematics portion of the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) was the highest in the nine years the test has been administered, according to data released today by the California Department of Education.

In addition, the achievement gap among some subgroups closed to the smallest margins since the testing began.

"I applaud the efforts that are taking place in our schools from students and their teachers that have led to these results," County Superintendent Gary Thomas said. "I also was pleased to see that progress has been made in many areas in efforts to close the achievement gap among various subgroups."

With 75 percent of 10th graders passing the math portion of the test during the 2008-09 academic year, sophomores improved by 2 percent on last year's record score. There were 32,674 county 10th-graders who took the math portion of the exam.

Hispanic students continue to show growth in closing the achievement gap in both English language arts and math. For the third consecutive year, the Hispanic subgroup showed growth in the percentage of students passing both portions of the test.

In math, 71 percent of Hispanic students passed the test, an improvement of 2 percent over last year. Hispanic students also closed the gap by 2 points with their White peers. With a gap of 13 points between the two groups of students, it's the closest the two subgroups have been in nine years of testing. The gap has closed from 25 percent in 2000-01 to 13 in 2008-09.

For the class of 2010, which will be the fifth class that will have to pass the CAHSEE in order to graduate from high school, an estimated 88.2 percent of county seniors have passed in ELA and 86.5 percent in math.The California Department of Education estimates that 90 percent of all seniors have passed both portions of the exit exam.

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

In addition to the mathematics passage rates, county sophomores maintained their passage rate for English language arts at 76 percent, the second-highest passage rate in nine years.

African American students continued to show long-term improvement in their passage rates. In math, they have improved to a passage rate of 63 percent in 2008-09 from 24 percent in 2000-01. The group maintained its 63 percent passage rate from 2007-08 to 2008-09. In ELA, African Americans have improved 15 percentage points over nine years to a passage rate of 67 percent in 2008-09. That, however, was a 3-percent decline from 2007-08 passage rates.

English language learners in 10th grade improved 3 percentage points to 50 percent in math this year compared to last year's scores. Economically disadvantage 10th-graders also improved 3 points in math to a record-high of 69 percent passage rate.

Among county 10th-graders, females scored better than males in ELA (80 percent vs. 71 percent), and females also scored better in math (76 percent vs. 74 percent).

Overall passage rates for county 10th-graders - 75 percent in math and 76 percent in ELA - were slightly under the state averages (80 percent in math and 79 in ELA). Seven districts - Bear Valley, Chaffey Joint Union High, Chino Valley, Redlands, Snowline, Upland and Yucaipa-Calimesa - matched or exceeded the state averages in passage rates for both ELA and math.

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

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