For many people, the topic of exit exams comes down to an issue of fairness: It is unfair to withhold a diploma from a student who has attended school through the 12th grade, even if the student has not achieved a level of proficiency in English and math. To pose the issue as a question: Is a diploma a symbol of high school attendance completion or a certification of a level of academic achievement?

Before we go any further, let's get some of the facts about the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) out there to avoid any confusion:
(1) Students may take the exam six times between their sophomore and senior years, and as many times as they need after that in order to get their diploma.
(2) The exam contains two parts (English-language arts (ELA) and mathematics), both sections must be passed, but not in the same test sitting.
(3) The CAHSEE math component addresses state math content standards through grade eight, and ELA standards through grade ten. (According to the LA Times article, students must score a 55% on the math section and 60% on the ELA section in order to pass).
(4) Students who do not pass are eligible for intensive remedial instruction (even after 12th grade) paid for by the state.

Though the test has plenty of critics (and a court case pending), I think the reaction of the students and parents in the article is telling and offers hints that the test might be having its intended effect: to ensure students reach a basic academic level before graduation. The exit exam has been placed in front of them as a challenge and there is no palatable choice but to bear down ("cram," if you will) and pass the test. Granted cramming is not preferable to learning the information over the course of several years in a rich educational environment; but isn't rubber stamping diplomas--creating a sort of Gershem's Law in education, where "bad" diplomas don't push out good ones so much as they make all diplomas worthless as a sign of academic competency--worse? After all, the state is not asking students to toil at a frivolous task--we're talking about attaining the education level that the state set for 8th grade math students and 10th grade English students.

There are at least two objections roaming out there that I want to address:
First, there are people who complain that creating an exit exam will just cause more students to leave school as they realize they won't be able to pass the exam, thereby exacerbating the already terrible drop-out problem. Well, if you believe the recent survey of high school drop outs, one of the problems was that students were not being challenged enough. Is this not a great opportunity to offer these students a meaningful academic challenge that has a very clear and concrete reward? This is especially true if the challenge is laid out and expressed clearly to students in 9th grade and when they first sit to take the test in 10th grade. Any student who does not pass that first time should have the goal and the consequences of failing to reach it explained clearly to them. Two years is a lot of time to turn things around.
Truth be told, though, I've never understood this objection, because I've never found its basic assumption to be palatable: that not to test students and thereby to allow them to graduate on time would be doing them a favor because you are giving them what they've earned for showing up to school everyday.

This ties in with the other objection I want to address, which is that California is unfairly penalizing students for a failure that had more to do with their school(s) or their teacher(s). If we can disregard the blame game aspects of this point that I think have no merit in these discussions, what's really at issue is how frighteningly myopic the perspective that gives rise to this qualm can be. A diploma does not an education make (apologies to Lovelace!). You don't even have to trust your instinct on this one: A survey of 120 American corporations found that "in today's workplace writing is a 'threshold skill' for hiring and promotion among salaried employees." That survey also found that "Eighty percent or more of the companies in the service and finance, insurance, and real estate sectors, the corporations with the greatest employment growth potential, assess writing during hiring." So while we might be sparing our high school students another test, we would be doing it at the expense of their future.

In his 1999 book How to Succeed at School Without Really Learning, David Labaree discusses, in part, how the focus of education in this country has ceased to be about learning and has instead become preoccupied (obsessed) with the concept of education as a commodity--a credential to be obtained. I think of CAHSEE, and other exit exams, as an opportunity to reintroduce the two concepts to each other because, let's face it, it's been a while.