California’s remedial interventions may be coming too late to do much good for high school upperclassmen working to pass the exit exam required for graduation, according to a study released by the Public Policy Institute of California.
Researchers studied three efforts intended to help students pass the test: state programs to support district-funded tutoring in grades 11 and 12; state grants for districts to support seniors who are still failing the exam; and test-preparation classes in San Diego schools for 11th and 12th graders who have failed the mathematics or language arts parts of the exam.
Test-prep classes did boost students’ scores in their particular subject but did not increase their chances of passing the overall exam. On the whole, both supplemental tutoring and prep classes increased the numbers of students passing the exit exams by just 1.5 percent to 3 percent.
