Secrecy, Outrage Cloud True Nature of CLAS : Missteps by Agency Mar Public Perception of Test

One thing is certain involving the rigorous and controversial state educational testing program known as the California Learning Assessment System, or CLAS. If a public relations firm had been hired to sell the thing to the public and to handle the damage control to date, it would be out of a job.

That is indeed a shame, because California employers, educators and parents deserve to know that students here are being tested by an exam that measures critical thinking skills. They need a test that determines whether our students are prepared to compete in the global marketplace. They need a performance-based test, not another one that stresses rote memorization, multiple choice “guesstimation,� and grading on a curve. That was what CLAS was meant to be, and it can be that, with only a bit of fine-tuning.

Unfortunately, there was first an uproar over whether the expensive exam was scored so sloppily as to have made it impossible to determine how well schools did on the test in comparison to other schools. Next to spin out of control were rumors about the test’s content. Before long, questions that were never on the exam were being circulated as examples of why the test had to be scuttled.

The state Department of Education became as secretive as the Catholic Church’s College of Cardinals is when a new Pope is elected. By the time that it finally agreed that individual students could opt out of the test, opponents of the testing already had left that barn door far behind. Several school systems, including the Antelope Valley Union High School District and Acton-Agua Dulce Unified, balked and refused outright to administer the test.

The state took the Antelope Valley district to court over the matter, and it has won the first round. We hoped it would be the only round. Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne has ruled that state law requires school districts to administer the CLAS test.

Unfortunately, the district’s school board has decided to appeal Judge Wayne’s ruling. That was a mistake, and it might be a costly one in terms of unnecessary legal fees. The much maligned CLAS test is deserving of a second chance, and not a burial.

The CLAS test’s future is already in doubt, with Gov. Pete Wilson’s deletion from the budget, last month, of the money that had been designated for CLAS pending an overhaul of the test. Wilson’s move was unnecessary and unduly damaging.

We have supported the bill sponsored by state Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) that would prohibit questions on the test that relate to students’ or parents’ personal beliefs about family life, sex, morality or religion. In effect, that would be a restatement of the state Education Code. Hart also wanted an independent panel review, and the release of previous versions of the exam to the public. Hart’s bill narrowly passed the Senate on June 2 and faces an uncertain future.

The Antelope Valley Union High School District, Acton-Agua Dulce Unified, and the four other districts that have refused to administer the test should await the outcome of the Legislature’s efforts to improve the CLAS test. Protracted and certain to be expensive legal battles are hardly a proper use of school system funds at this point.

Antelope Valley Union High School Board President Bill Pricer had made the original motion to simply not administer the CLAS test. . . against the advice of the district’s legal counsel. Bill Olenick was one of two Antelope Valley members to vote against Pricer’s motion. Olenick argued that the district should give the test and leave it up to the parents to decide on whether their children would take it. Sometimes, the most simple solutions are the best. The board should reconsider Olenick’s position and support it. His thoughts represent the most sensible course for the board to take.