MHUSD sees mixed results in high school exit exam

Sophomore students in Morgan Hill are improving their test
scores on the state mandated California High School Exit Exam with
Ann Sobrato High School students outdoing their peers at Live Oak
High School.
Morgan Hill

Sophomore students in Morgan Hill are improving their test scores on the state mandated California High School Exit Exam with Ann Sobrato High School students outdoing their peers at Live Oak High School.

The results show an 8 percent surge districtwide on the English language arts portion of the test and a 3 percent increase on the math section. The Exit Exam, required by public high schools to demonstrate grade-level proficiency, is first given to students their sophomore year of high school and is required for graduation. Students are given many chances throughout their high school career to pass the test – except for eligible students with disabilities – though the recently released results are based on first-time test takers.

Sobrato High School’s 400 students fared better on the math section with an 88 percent passing rate and on the English language arts portion with 92 percent passing the test. At Live Oak, the scores of its 332 sophomores weren’t as outstanding, but were up from last year: 84 percent on math and 85 percent on English. Last year, Live Oak had a 76 passing rate in math and 75 percent on English; 89 percent at Sobrato passed math and 87 percent did not have to re-take the English test.

“We got to give a hand to all of our students who passed that test,” school board Trustee Julia Hover-Smoot said.

The teachers and administrative support at the high schools worked hard to bring students up to speed, something that former superintendent Alan Nishino pushed while at the helm from 2004 to 2009. A piece of Nishino’s vision was to align curriculum throughout the district with special attention given to students whose second language is English.

Hover-Smoot added, “Wes (Smith, the district’s superintendent) is doing such a great job and building on the last few years of groundwork that was laid before he arrived.”

In the school district, 33 percent of students are identified as “socio-economically disadvantaged” – similar to the county with 35 percent – though lower than the state’s count of 52 percent. Poorer students historically don’t test as well as students who are not considered living at or below poverty level.

This year, that category of about 250 students in the district jumped from 60 percent passing in 2009 to 75 percent on the English test and from 62 percent to 71 percent on the math test.

A second subgroup of students that often record lower test scores, are English language learners who make up 13 percent of the 747 total sophomore students tested this year.

Assistant Superintendent of Education Services Socorro Shiels said how the first-time test takers achieved better scores can’t exactly be pinpointed, it is “an overall example of how the attention is being paid to the standards,” she said. “Over time I would expect scores to go up because we’re learning what we need to do to get better.”

Districtwide, students who speak English as a second language made a 16 percentage point leap from 41 percent passing to 58 percent in English and jumped 11 percentage points from 46 percent to 57 percent in math. Morgan Hill high school students are on par with the county’s results for English language learners – 57 percent in English and 43 percent in math – and keeping up with the state pulse of 42 percent passing English and 52 percent passing math.

The disparity does grow among students when the results are broken down by ethnicity: 93 percent of white students (about 330) passed in math and 96 percent in English, 76 percent of Hispanic or Latino students (about 310) passed in math and 78 percent in English; 92 percent of Filipino and Asian students (62 students) passed in math and 95 percent in English; and 68 percent of black students (22) passed in math and 91 percent passed in English.

For more information and detailed results of the California High School exit exam go to http://cahsee.cde.ca.gov.

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