CAHSEE tutoring

A Raider has a Rant!
by Bob Chan

Sophomores this year they have an important test that decides their future because if they don’t pass then they might not get a high school diploma. That test is the CAHSEE and is a requirement for high school graduation in the state of California and is divided into two main sections: English-language arts and mathematics. The English section includes 79 multiple choice questions, and requires students to respond to a prompt with a 2 1/2 page essay. The mathematics section consists of 92 multiple choice questions. Scores are scaled out of a possible 450 points on each section. The essay portion is scaled out of one to four. The test first applied to the graduating class of 2006, with approximately nine of every ten students passing.

Every Saturday the school hosts the Rising Stars, which is a program that brings in students who show great promise to pass and to help them to achieve the goal from 8 A.M to 12 A.M in the gym. For that you are not required to go but on Wednesdays and Tuesdays certain students are forced to skip STEP and an hour of their time after school to go into a CAHSEE help class. The part of that which doesn’t make sense is that people who are not required to go to the special class are still doing the same things in their class instead of themselves taking any form of CAHSEE prep. A problem I have with that is that some students who happened to have not done enough of a good enough job on their CST's or End of Course Exams last year but who are taking AP classes cannot go after school to be tutored or retake tests and stuck in that class until 4 P.M by which time most teachers would have left. That leaves the students with no extra help and will lead to lower grades for the students. Just because the person did not do a good job on their pre-CAHSEE it does not mean that they need unnecessary help. Administrators should instead examine students' G.P.A and other facts that would better illustrate the student's mental capacity.