Has CAHSEE Improved Student Academic Achievement?
During the 2005-06 School-year almost 8000,000 tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade high school students took the mathematics portion of CAHSEE (data tabulated here). This exceeds the total K-12 enrollment of numerous mid-sized states, including Alabama (731,000), Colorado (758,000), Connecticut (577,000), Kentucky (664,000), Louisiana (728,000), Oklahoma (626,000), South Carolina (699,000), and Oregon (551,000). CAHSEE is clearly a large-scale educational initiative, with policy implications stretching well beyond California’s physical borders. Has this investment in CAHSEE produced the improvements in student academic achievement imagined by the architects of PSAA in the California Legislature, and subsequently by the architects of NCLB in the nation’s capitol? If so, what can be done to scale up and institutionalize these improvements across multiple LEAs? If not, what can be done to create educational programs and interventions capable of translating these legislative expectations into demonstrably effective educational practices?