ACRAMENTO — The California Department of Education (CDE) today released the results of the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) from the 2002-03 school year. These scores are the aggregate results at the school, district, county, and state levels from each of the six administrations given last year.

The information released today includes the May administration for the first time, adding test results for approximately 44,000 students and completing the report for the class of 2004 and 2005. The final overall percentage of pass/fail changes only slightly from the numbers released in June. See Attachments below.

In English-language Arts, approximately 78 percent of the 402,958 students in the class of 2005 (grade 10) passed the CAHSEE and approximately 59 percent of the 411,912 passed the mathematics portion of the exam.

The CAHSEE addresses state academic content standards in English-language Arts through grade 10 and mathematics through Algebra I. During the 2002-03 school year, there were six administrations of the CAHSEE exam. The Class of 2005 took the exam only one time in the Spring of 2003. Students in the Class of 2004 could take the exam up to three times. Test scores for the class of 2004 reveal aggregate numbers, and in the case of students taking the test multiple times during this testing period, the results contain multiple scores for those students. The Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO) will be providing a report later this month designed to provide further analysis for the class of 2004 and 2005 test results with the goal of counting each student only once, including estimated pass/fail rates for each part of the CAHSEE. This Year 4 CAHSEE Independent Evaluation Report will be posted on the CDE Web site soon.

"I continue to be encouraged by these results. The overall trend continues to show that we are on the right track," stated Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell. "I look forward to the findings of the upcoming HumRRO report which should provide us additional information on our progress toward the CAHSEE becoming a requirement for graduation."

In July of this year, the State Board of Education voted to delay the consequences of CAHSEE to the class of 2006. Students in the Classes of 2004 and 2005 are no longer required to pass the CAHSEE to receive a high school diploma. Students in the Class of 2006 will have their first opportunity to take the CAHSEE in February 2004 .

The CAHSEE's independent evaluator found that local efforts to provide students with instruction in the state's academic content standards have increased. To assist local instruction activities, the CDE continues to provide a variety of resources, including teacher guides, released CAHSEE questions from prior test administrations, training materials, and workshops. Resources are available at the CAHSEE Web site Program Resources - California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE).

The aggregate CAHSEE results for all of the administrations during the 2002-03 school year (July, September, November 2002 and January, March, and May 2003) by school, district, county, and state are available on DataQuest. Individual student CAHSEE results are confidential and are not included in the Internet posting. Research files are also available in tab-delimited format at this Web site to allow for more complex analyses and customized reporting of the data.

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Attachments

CAHSEE Passing Rates for First-Time Test
Takers in the Class of 2004 and 2005

English Language Arts

Mathematics

CAHSEE Passing Rates for First-Time Test
Takers in the Class of 2004 and 2005

English Language Arts

Mathematics