SACRAMENTO, CA - In a recent speech, Wayne Johnson, president of the California Teachers Association (CTA), blared, "We have to fight to end these absurd tests that are biased, racist, and unfairly define kids and teachers as failures" The CTA is sponsoring legislation that would effectively eliminate the state's high-school exit exam. A new study, however, shows that the exit exam has improved the quality of instruction.

The high school exit exam was first administered in 2001 to students in the class of 2004, the first required to pass the exam as a prerequisite for getting a diploma. Although students will have multiple opportunities to pass, low initial passage rates have caused groups like the CTA to fight the exam. The legislation that created the exam, however, also mandated an independent evaluation of it. That evaluation, conducted by the Human Resources Research Organization, has just been released and supports key aspects of the exam.

First, after reviewing testing guidelines laid down by the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Council for Measurement in Education, the evaluation concluded that the exit exam "meets all of the test standards for use as a graduation requirement."

More interesting is the fact that the exit exam has served as an incentive for schools to implement the state's rigorous academic content standards. Since the exit exam is aligned with the standards, which cover core subjects such as English, math, science, and social studies, schools that want their students to pass should be emphasizing the standards in classroom instruction. The evaluation found that the exam "has been a major factor leading to dramatically increased coverage of the California Content Standards at both the high school and middle school levels and to development or improvement of courses providing help for students who have difficulty mastering these standards."

According to the evaluation, in 1999 only about 20 percent of schools surveyed in the report covered at least three-quarters of the standards, whereas in the current school year more than 80 percent of the schools reported such in-depth coverage. The report found that schools with high levels of standards coverage had much higher passage rates on the exit exam than schools that had not implemented the standards as intensely. For example, on the English portion, 100 percent of the schools in the survey which had high levels of standards coverage had passage rates of 75 percent or greater. In contrast, only 59 percent of schools that had lower standards coverage had passing rates of 75 percent or greater.

Many critics of the exit exam argue that "low quality" teachers at poor urban schools are the reason for bad instruction and poor passage rates. However, according to the report's authors: "We also investigated the possible impact of teacher qualifications, defined by their credentials and years of experience, and professional development programs for the teachers on the effectiveness of standards-based instruction. There was no clear evidence that teacher qualification was an important factor."

The report's findings indicate that the high-school exit exam has improved the quality of instruction for students, which in turn will improve their achievement. Giving in to the doomsayers will end up only hurting students.

Lance T. Izumi is a Senior Fellow in California Studies and Director of Education Studies at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. He can be reached via email at lizumi@pacificresearch.org.