The 2009 California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) results are out – and the news is not very good here in Santa Ana, where theSanta Ana Unified School District’s motto is “Failure is unacceptable, Success is the standard.”
Santa Ana Unified, the county’s largest school district with nearly 3,600 graduates, had the most students who failed to earn diplomas because of the exam – 315, according to the O.C. Register. Countywide 506 students failed this exam and won’t be receiving High School diplomas.
To better assess what this all means I went back and examined the CAHSEE results in the SAUSD over the past few years, and found that:
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Without failure, there can be no success.
Should the school districts be required to refund the money collected to educated the failures to the parents of the failures so they can pay for a vocational school?
And if so, should the refund be deducted from the pay of the employees AND deducted from the retirement pay of past employees as the people responsibly for the failures in the first place.?
Some advice for SAUSD graduates from a Judge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dbLfD5Vjq4&feature=PlayList&p=58C8191C309FCD3A&playnext=1&index=126
Cook-
Art said he personally doesn’t blame the teachers and I agree. He had a mother than helped him to do well in school. If the teacher doesn’t have the support of the parents then they could be the best teacher in the world and that might not be enough for some students to pass the CAHSEE and STAR tests.
Perhaps I should propose the exact opposite of what you suggest about districts refunding money to the parents of students who don’t graduate. How about if a student doesn’t graduate HS then the parents pay back a portion of all the tax relief they’ve received for 18 years for having that student? After all the tax breaks would be pretty stupid for simply having a kid, shouldn’t the tax breaks support good parenting rather that just having functional sexual organs? I’d bet an awful lot that parents would be a lot of active in their child’s education if they knew their tax bill might increase.
another guy . good points but what if the parents DONT SPEAK ENGLISH . i would love to see the parents of these kids that flunked . i would bet that they dont speak english or are illegal so how can they help them . i see it all the time the parents have to bring their kids to get stuff at a drug store , no one speaks english anymore . go to mickey d, taco bell ,del taco , most of the orders are in spanish , the people in the back are all speaking spanish . press one one for english when calling somewhere .
I passed and scored Advanced in all sectors of the exam.
The test is not hard for those who speak English fluently, I too learned English as a second language.
Individual students disadvantages have to be taken into consideration to correctly address this problem
Santa Ana needs to look at the schools that are succeeding like Segerstrom and Godinez and see if there is a significant difference in CAHSEE preparation by the low performing high schools.
I know that at Godinez my kids had a lot of prep time and passed it in the 10th grade (with perfect scores in math, along with 65 other kids).
Santa Ana does have some high schools that are performing at or above expectations, we need to transfer the things that work at the fundamental schools to our other high schools( if they aren’t already doing it), like the availability of before and after school tutoring and the robo-calls that inform parents about specific classroom assignments, tests, missed work and unexcused absences.
I especially appreciate the robo-calls, I think it is a great way to keep parents informed of what is REALLY going on, because we all know you can’t always trust your teens to tell you the truth.
anonster,
I wonder why the SAUSD does not provide us with a way to check on how our kids are doing, online? Other school districts allow you to do this. That way you can see the grades not at the end but during the semester.
My older son goes to Godinez and you are right. They do prep well. But the fundamental schools do well overall. The problem is the rest of the schools – and a student population that has been allowed to fall through the cracks. If you look at the numbers they are consistently poor. The district should be overhauling whatever it is that they are doing, as it clearly isn’t working.
Funny though, if you judge the district by its website it would appear that all is well…
One of the biggest reasons Godinez and Segerstrom do well is the issue of selection. The issue of selection is there not only for students but for parents as well.
When students do not do well at those schools they are sent to the other schools. Also when students do well at one of the non-fundamental schools they and their parents are called and recruited to come on over.
The biggest issue however is with the parental involvement. At Fundamental schools not only can they require parents take an active part in their child’s education but the parents that already are helping their students in Elementary School and Jr. High are drawn towards schools that have higher CST and CAHSEE scores. And while I even have my doubts about their “lottery” being on the up and up, the mere fact that they have a huge registration packet to fill out discourages a lot of parents from even bothering to try and get their child in, especially when it likely means asking for help in filling out forms in English.
I find it amusing how great parents (as I’m confident both anonster and Art are) think that the reason their children are successful is because of the school they go to and the teachers there. The reason your children are successful is because of you!!!! YOU make sure they do their HW! YOU make sure they have consequences when they don’t. YOU are the over-whelming reason why your children are doing well in school. Want to know a little secret….. The teachers at Godinez and Segerstrom went to the same Colleges and went through the same teaching programs as the teachers at ALL THE OTHER schools in Santa Ana. The teaching base, curriculum, and pedagogy is far far far far more close to a constant within all the schools in Santa Ana than you would ever care to admit to. Also all of the non-Fundamental schools in Santa Ana have tons of students that are doing extremely well on the CAHSEE and the CST Tests. Doesn’t the fact that all the other schools have lots of students that do score advanced show that their teachers are capable of their students doing well???? You guys say the other schools should just copy what they do….. but the problem is THEY CAN’T. When they have students not doing what they need to do…. what school can they pass them off to? Of that’s right they can’t.
Also Art you mention the non-Fundamental schools failing because they allow kids to fall through the cracks. With you running for school board, I’m sure you have plenty of ideas on how to turn that around. Please explain to me, what you would have a school/administrator/teacher do for a child that has no motivation whatsoever to learn and whose parents haven’t the foggiest idea about discipline and lets their child walk right over them in front of school staff?
another guy,
I have noted in past posts the selection issue. It is true that this has had an effect on the non-fundamental schools.
The kids who do the worst on the tests are English learners and those who are in economically challenged homes. I don’t know that we can conclude that they don’t care. They just have a lot more challenges than the other kids.
I do agree that the teachers should not bear the brunt of this. It is unfair to attack them. Yes, my kids have run into a few bad teachers, but overall our teachers are good at what they do and do their best. They do so now under difficult conditions, with less help than they used to have.
I have heard horror stories about kids who get involved in gangs and are selling drugs. Their parents sometimes look the other way as they need the drug money to pay the bills. This is one reason I favor ending the drug war and decriminalizing drugs. We need to take the profit out of the drug trade.
One idea I have proposed is opening micro-libraries throughout the city, using volunteers and empty retail space. Many of the poorest areas could really use this concept to give kids a place to do homework and access the Internet.
Again, I would not blame the kids necessarily. How well would you do if you were suddenly dropped into a school where your language was not spoken? The sooner we can get these kids up to speed with English, the better. One has to wonder what exactly the district is doing about this. Whatever it is, I don’t think it is working.
Art- I agree with mostly everything you said.
Of course there are students with huge disadvantages, and like I was saying those are the students that are disproportionately at the NON-fundamental schools. And I didn’t mean to imply that all kids that are failing, don’t care, but there is a section of students who honestly don’t care at all and they can bring a whole lot of students down with them.
I certainly agree on the drug issue…. just decriminalize it already. I’m all for more freedom.
I will say this… I think the district is STARTING to do things well that might show some increased test scores in the future. I believe this was the FIRST year that High Schools starting doing double periods for certain students who needed the support in English and Math at the 9th grade level. This was the FIRST year that some High Schools had courses specifically for students who failed the CAHSEE even though I believe that them passing after already failing DOES NOT improve their school scores. This was the FIRST year that some schools had their libraries open until like 8 or 9 pm most nights. This was the FIRST year that some schools offered Saturday School just for students that wanted to come and it wasn’t used as a discipline issue. Well see how much all of this helped in the coming years…. fingers crossed right?
I’m all for libraries, but I will say that in my opinion if a kid is already going to a library or has a parent taking him to a library then he is 99.9% already doing well in school but of course their should be tons of books available for those children and families to improve their reading skills.
Again I won’t say volunteers are a bad idea, the more help the better I’m sure, but I will say I know that students at the non-Fundamental schools at least last year had SOOO many opportunities to go get extra help with any subject that they might be struggling in. If you talk to those students, they all know where they can get help, and that there are paid tutors from UCI and other colleges that come by after school and are in the library along with some of their teachers.
Also you asked me how well I would do if I moved to a country where English wasn’t spoken. What can I say….. Of course I would have struggled on school tests for awhile. But I would have made it a huge priority to learn the language of the country I was in ASAP. It is far too easy for students in Santa Ana to live in a Spanish bubble. Spanish at home, Spanish with friends, Spanish on TV, Spanish at restaurants, and yes even Spanish at school. Spanish classes are offered for parents at HS in Santa Ana and then they close from lack of enrollment. I know they are busy, but I would never go to France and expect to be a member of even their lower-middle class w/o learning to speak French.
another guy,
I took French for two quarters in college. I think I could master it if I stuck to it, but it surely isn’t Spanish.
I hope you are right and that progress is being made. Lord knows what will become of all these kids who graduated and who are now wandering around without high school diplomas…not to mention all the drop-outs who didn’t make it to the finish line.
Meant English classes are offered for parents.