2008 Exit Exam scores released

Link to 2008 High School Assessment Program scores

More South Carolina students passed the state’s high school exit exam on their first attempt this year, according to results released today by the Education Department.

Four out of five South Carolina 10th-graders passed both sections of the state’s exit exam by scoring at Level 2 or higher on the test’s four achievement levels. The average passing rate of 80.8 percent, the state’s highest to date, was a 3.7 percentage-point improvement over 2007.

HSAP serves as both a state-mandated exit exam required for a S.C. high school diploma and a federally mandated testing program to measure high school progress.

Public school students must pass both the English Language Arts and mathematics sections of the High School Assessment Program to meet the state’s exit examination requirement for a diploma. The tests are initially administered in the students’ second year of high school, and students who do not post passing scores on their first attempts have additional opportunities to retake the parts they did not pass.

About half of the states require high school students to pass an exit exam, in addition to earning the state-mandated number of course credits, to earn a diploma. South Carolina also requires students to earn 24 high school credits to graduate; some states require as few as 14.

In addition to functioning as the state-mandated high school exit exam, HSAP scores also factor into high school Adequate Yearly Progress ratings under the federal No Child Left Behind law, which requires that all students score at a level of Proficient or higher by 2014.