An Instrument to certify mastery of high school competencies shall be constructed so that it is valid statewide for college course placement

I am Lynda Halttunen, the Matriculation Director at Palomar College, located in North San Diego County.  Part of what I am responsible for implementing is "placement testing" of in-coming students into our English, math and reading classes.  As part of our service to current high school students who intend to attend Palomar are "on-site" testing and orientation and priority registration for nearly 3000 seniors at out 36 local feeder high schools.  This takes two staff nearly the entire spring semester.  We use a placement instrument developed by ACT called ASSET.  Nearly all 108 Community Colleges in California offer similar services to their respective communities.  

Two years ago, when we learned of the statewide move toward a "high school exit exam", we requested that our Chancellor's Office suggest to the State Department of Education inclusion in the construction of the test the validity for use for California Community College placement.   There is little need to "over test" students in the same subject areas.  "Exit exam" results can not be used for course placement unless this purpose was included in the initial design and construction of the instrument.

When the RFP went out to test developers to submit proposals, functionality for valid use in California Community Colleges for course placement was not included in the specifications.  I believe we missed a unique opportunity to create an efficient and seamless process of moving our students through our public education system in California.  I now understand that this " high school exit exam" is normed to the eighth grade level.

The rationale for not including "placement validity" into the construction of the instrument was that "the more purposes you try to use an instrument for, the less effective it becomes for any one of them!"  This keeps the test developers in business and the students are tested over and over again on the same basic math and English skills.

To that end, I made the following recommendation to the Student Learning Workgroup:

Recommendation:  "An Instrument to certify mastery of high school competencies shall be constructed so that it is valid statewide for college course placement.

Numerous instruments which measure the same skills are administered to high school students.  Each college has its own instrument to determine English and math course placement levels.  In order to more efficiently utilize state resources and to reduce the burden on students and districts of redundant assessment of student learning, an instrument shall be constructed which shall be valid for more than one purpose.  This instrument shall be aligned to the state K-12 content standards and to the entry level competencies required for community college, UC and CSU course placement.  Cut scores and multiple measures will be locally determined by the accepting institutions for course placement, based on their local populations."