GRADUATION A SORE SUBJECT 20% OF LAUSD SENIORS FAILED EXIT TEST; SOME WON'T LEARN FATE UNTIL JUNE.

Byline: NAUSH BOGHOSSIAN Staff Writer

Nearly 20 percent of the Los Angeles Unified School District's high school seniors have repeatedly failed the state's exit exam and most won't know until June - just days before graduation - whether their last attempt at the mandatory test was successful.

District officials reported late Friday that fewer than half of the 1,436 seniors who took the English and math tests in February passed. Those students will get another chance to take the test in May, but will not know the results before June graduation.

While those students know they'll miss graduating with the rest of their class, about 4,500 others who took the tests last month won't learn their status until early June.

"It's disappointing. It just shows you that we still have more work to do, especially with our English-language learner populations," said Esther Wong, assistant superintendent of planning, assessment and research.

"But there is improvement in that group, so there's hope, and we'll see what happens when we get the final results.

"Of course, we want more of our students to pass, but our overall percentage of 82 percent passing is good and we're aiming for better."

District officials maintained that the latest results showed progress, especially among those for English-learners and special-education students.

The district's seniors should have been in a better position at this point, said Estela Zarate, director of education policy research at the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, a think tank at the University of Southern California.

According to dropout studies she's conducted, Zarate said, the district loses 30 percent to 50 percent of students who begin high school. Assuming the weaker-performing students drop out, those who remain should be able to pass the exit test.

"That's not very good at all. I would expect the pass rate on the CAHSEE should be higher, especially if the students have completed the course requirements expected to complete high school," Zarate said.

The district has spent about $7.7 million on test preparation courses after school and on Saturdays, as well as "boot camps" before the examinations, to get their students to pass the test.

But board member David Tokofsky said that given the high concentration of students at the district's high schools, educators have reduced those who have yet to pass the exam to a "remarkably low number per high school."

"Excluding the kids who are still learning English and have special- education needs, the pass rates are quite unexpectedly remarkable," Tokofsky said.

"The only significant concern is that the parents have been informed that their kids have not passed. Otherwise, this is going to come as a big surprise to families who are thinking about graduation."

But educators are concerned that students who have failed the tests will not attend summer school and will drop out.

"I just don't want to lose any of these kids that didn't pass in the next three to six months," Tokofsky said.

Zarate said fears of losing students are well-founded.

"Their graduating-class peers have left and I can understand why they'd give up trying to pass a test that, for them, does not measure what they've learned," she said. "Students get tired of testing."

And district officials have not yet determined whether they will allow those who have not passed the test by graduation to participate in the ceremonies. The district staff has recommended against their participation.

naush.boghossian(at)dailynews.com

[phone]