Study says minority parents support exit exam

[George Sheridan <learn@jps.net>]

Question: If "almost all" minority parents surveyed "expect" their children 
to graduate from a four-year university, is this evidence of strong support 
for academic achievement on the part of these parents? Or is it evidence of 
a disconnect from reality, given that there is no ethnic group in which the 
majority, let alone "almost all" of high school graduates graduate from 
four-year universities? Or is the sample skewed to include only 
middle-class parents or professionals?

The statement that "More than half of parents in each ethnic subgroup said 
they helped their children with homework assignments every night" is also 
surprising. I don't think it is true among white middle class parents at my 
school. Finally, it is odd that the surveyed parents reportedly said they 
believed college preparation was the key reason for their children to 
attend public schools. In surveys conducted for the California Teachers 
Association all over the state, voters and potential voters consistently 
report that they do not expect all children to attend college.

In a survey of 600 likely voters in one suburban California county at the 
end of 2003, the top response to the question of "What would most improve 
schools?" was increased parental involvement and teacher/parent 
partnership, followed by an increased emphasis on critical thinking and 
decision-making. Only 2% thought increased efforts to raise test scores are 
the best way to improve schools.

When asked what they mean by higher expectations for students, over half of 
likely voters chose improved behavior and conduct. More than a third talked 
about students applying themselves to make academic progress. Only 8% chose 
expecting more students to go to college.

Over 90% of these likely voters oppose the elimination of remedial courses 
and vocational education. Majorities oppose focusing solely on reading, 
writing and math or enrolling every student in college prep classes.

The pollster stated that these results are completely consistent with 
seventy-five (75) polls she has conducted for CTA in every part of 
California - urban, rural and suburban - over a period of ten years. But 
they seem inconsistent with the Bendixen report.


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Minority parents support exit exam
By Jocelyn Wiener -- Bee Staff Writer
Published Thursday, August 24, 2006
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/education/v-print/story/14306206p-15189735c.html

Most African American, Asian American and Latino parents support the 
California High School Exit Exam and believe the main function of the 
public education system should be to prepare their children for college, 
according to a study released Wednesday by New America Media, a 
California-based ethnic media consortium.

The findings were released a day after the state came out with the most 
recent exit exam figures, which show a wide achievement gap between white 
and Asian American students and their African American and Latino counterparts.

About 88 percent of white sophomores taking the math portion of the test 
for the first time last year passed it, as did 92 percent of Asian American 
sophomores. By contrast, 57 percent of African American sophomores and 65 
percent of Latino sophomores passed.

Legal challenges to the exit exam, including a high profile lawsuit shot 
down earlier this month by the state Court of Appeal, have been based 
largely on arguments that poor students, English learners, and African 
American and Latino students are failing the test because they are not 
receiving the same educational opportunities as many white and Asian 
American students. Critics of the exam say it is unfair to require the same 
outcome of all students when the state's educational system is laced with 
deep inequalities.

The study's authors say wide support for the exit exam among minority 
parents flies in the face of those arguments -- that those parents are 
dissatisfied with a public school system that hands out diplomas without 
adequately preparing their children for college.

Elisa Gonzalez is a bilingual parent liaison at Luther Burbank High School 
in south Sacramento and has spent the summer conducting home visits to 
students who have failed the exit exam.

Every parent she's encountered has stood behind the exam -- even those 
whose children have already failed it one time, she said.

"When we explain that it's about basic math and basic English -- at about 
10th grade (level) -- they really support that," Gonzalez said.

The authors of the poll say the results also challenge many of the 
educational establishment's assumptions about ethnic minority parents' 
commitment to their children's education.

Almost all parents polled -- 80 percent of Latinos, 86 percent of African 
Americans and 90 percent of Asian Americans -- expected their children to 
graduate from a four-year university; many also expected them to earn 
graduate degrees. The majority of parents said they believed college 
preparation was the key reason for their children to attend public schools.

"A lot of people in the educational establishment sometimes think ethnic 
parents, especially Latino or African American parents that come from the 
lower socioeconomic end of the scale, that they don't care about the public 
education of their kids, that they don't spend much time with them, that 
they don't meet up with their teachers," said Sergio Bendixen, president of 
Bendixen & Associates, the Miami-based public opinion polling firm that 
conducting the study. "This poll shows the complete opposite."

Bendixen & Associates interviewed 602 parents in six languages this past 
spring, asking their opinions ranging from preschool to college to the 
quality of the public education system.

More than half of parents in each ethnic subgroup said they helped their 
children with homework assignments every night; the vast majority helped at 
least a couple times a week. Ninety-one percent of Latino parents had met 
with their children's teachers at least twice since the start of the last 
school year, as had 85 percent of African American parents and 73 percent 
of Asian American parents.

One of the most striking results of the poll was the widespread support for 
the California High School Exit Exam among all three groups.

The exit exam became a graduation requirement for the first time for the 
class of 2006. About 97 percent of last year's white seniors passed the 
test by May, as did 95 percent of Asian American seniors.

By contrast, a little more than 85 percent of Latinos and 83 percent of 
African Americans passed the test.

Despite that disparity, 80 percent of Latino parents and 68 percent of 
African American parents said in the New America Media poll that they 
supported the exit exam.

Aubrey Hammond, a Sacramento man raising two teenage grandchildren, said he 
supports the exit exam because it raises the expectations necessary for a 
diploma.

"We Afro-Americans have got to push our kids, and not accept mediocrity," 
he said.

Hammond said he makes his grandchildren study for two hours a night. If 
they've finished their homework before two hours are up, he expects them to 
read.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said in a news 
release Wednesday that the high level of support for the exam shows that 
ethnic minority parents "understand that a high school diploma is 
meaningless if it does not signify preparation with skills necessary to 
succeed in education and in life."

Russlynn Ali, director of Education Trust West, an Oakland civil rights 
group that supports the exam, said the poll should send a message to the 
many civil rights advocates who oppose the test. If parents support the 
exam, she said, perhaps advocates should, too.

Mike Chavez, a spokesman for Californians for Justice, a liberal advocacy 
group that opposes the exit exam, said he was not surprised by the poll 
results. But he noted that support for the exit exam was coupled with a 
feeling among many ethnic minority parents that schools are not adequately 
preparing their children for careers.

Maurice Muhammed, has two sons at Jonas Salk High-Tech Academy in 
Sacramento; he's African American. "A lot of times, (students) are not 
given a challenging curriculum," he said. "They're passed along grade after 
grade, and they're not really prepared scholastically for the exit exam."

In the poll, 32 percent of Latinos, 18 percent of Asian Americans and 9 
percent of African Americans expressed strong confidence that the public 
education system was adequately preparing students for successful careers.

"Our criticism is of the order of things," Chavez said. "You need to 
improve schools first and then assess whether students are learning."

About the writer: The Bee's Jocelyn Wiener can be reached at (916) 321-1967 
or jwiener@sacbee.com. Bee staff writers Laurel Rosenhall and Deepa 
Ranganathan contributed to this report.

*

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George Sheridan