CAHSEE Prep Site, Drop-out Rates, and the Education Debate

This morning as I was surfing the net on the look out for new CAHSEE news or blog entries, I came across a nice post from a site called Ace Your Exit Exam. These guys seem to offer one of the top CAHSEE prep classes on the internet. I went through and looked at a few of their free CAHSEE lessons and I must say that I was pretty impressed. The material was well done and I liked what I saw. I have requested a teachers review series and once I receive it I will be posting some more on the content of their review course. They also have an interesting blog that has lots of CAHSEE related posts. The post from this morning dealt with how the CAHSEE impacts the drop-out rate. After I read the post(and subsequently the article it linked to) it got me thinking about why our schools are failing. Now this is something that I think about quite often and I usually come to the same conclusion. That conclusion inevitably is centered around the nature of the society we live in. Now anytime the problem is as dire as it is in our education system today it is usually the result of decades of mismanagement and downright incompetence. Before I digress too much let me get back to discussing how this relates to the California High School Exit Exam, better known as the CAHSEE. First of all lets just make it plain, the CAHSEE is not a difficult test. It tests basic understanding and implementation of the state content standards. It doesn't require advanced analysis on the part of the test-taker. If the standard is can a student perform 2 digit addition then the problem is something like 32 + 19. Nothing complicated, just can you do it? Now of course the CAHSEE tests standards that are more advanced than 2 digit addition but I use this example to underscore the fact that it is a straight forward test. So if kids fail at the rate that they do, then this tells us that they really aren't learning anything useful in school. This should have our population up in arms but it doesn't. Why not? Well its become accepted and it is always "someone else's problem". People now-a-days have become so complacent and apathetic that tragedies don't even phase them. Again I have digressed but the point here is we as a society don't care. Now some of us do, but as a whole we don't. If we did, there would be an unbelievable amount of outrage that such a high percentage of students can't get 55% on a simple test to demonstrate a basic level of competency prior to leaving high school. Now don't get me wrong there is outrage, it just isn't on the level that it should be. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on this.

Impacting Drop-out Rate