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Oregon's Certificate of Mastery Programs
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These two programs, Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM) and Certificate of Advanced Mastery (CAM) were part of the Oregon Educational Act passed by the State Legislature in 1991. It was designed to provide recognition for students who meet defined standards.
The Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM) standards was phased in over time and all academic areas were be in place by the 2002-03 school year. To learn more about the the CM programs visit Oregon Department of Education.
The statistic for the Mastery programs are part of the School Report Cards. To view, go to School Report Cards.
April 2007: CIM and CAM Proposed to be Eliminated
Superintendent of Oregon School, Susan Castillo, has proposed that the CIM and CAM tests be eliminated. According to the Oregon Department of Education, Castillo will press the Legislature to eliminate the two main academic benchmarks of Oregon's 15-year-old school reform law, after the Oregon Board of Education declined to endorse her action. In April, 2007, the Oregon House voted overwhelming to eliminate the test.
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CIM Test Content
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Students must pass state tests in reading, math, science, writing, and problem-solving. They must complete three essays, three speeches, and two detailed math problems that their teachers say meet state standards.
The academic content standards cover six content areas: English, mathematics, science, the social sciences (history, civics, geography and economics), the arts, and second languages. Students who achieve the grade ten performance standards in academic content areas will receive a Certificate of Initial Mastery. Students who achieve grade twelve performance standards in academic content areas and achieve career-related learning standards will receive a Certificate of Advanced Mastery (CAM). The CAM has not been implemented as of 2002.
Students have until the end of their senior year to earn the CIM. Oregon's class of 2001 was the first eligible to earn the certificates.
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Where to Find the CIM Statistics
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The statistic for the CIM program are part of the School Report Cards which you can view at School Report Cards. The CIM results are not easy to find on the report cards. They are also not easy to interpret. Here are some clues:
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CIM statistics are only on the senior high school report cards and are located in the SCHOOL AT A GLANCE area of the card, just above the SAT information.
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The report card gives the number of students for each academic year who passed the CIM - find it under the heading "Student Graduating . . ."
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To interpret the numbers, you should look at the number of students graduating with a diploma and compare it to the number of students graduating with a diploma and CIM. You can do a quick calculation to compute the percentage of students that graduated with a CIM.
About one-third of Oregon graduates complete the CIM program. Many of the senior high schools in the Portland metro area have over half of the students completing the CIM. For example, Lake Oswego Senior High had a 54.5 percent completion rate for their 2005 graduating class and West Linn Senior High has 67.2 percent of their students complete the CIM in the same year.
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Metro Area CIM Results for 2005 School Year
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Most Portland-area high schools boosted their student success rate on the CIM at a time when the future of the certificate is uncertain. Of 48 metro schools with two years of scores, 36 saw an increase in the percentage of graduates earning the certificate. Some schools, such as Grant High in Portland and Aloha High in Aloha, had gains of 50 percent or more from 2004 to 2005.
Highest Percentage of CIM Earners
Among all high schools in the metro area:
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Beaverton's School of Science & Technology had the highest percentage of CIM earners at 93 percent.
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Among large high schools, Wilsonville High had 83 percent of students earning a CIM.
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Cleveland High School tied with Metropolitan Learning Center, a small high school, for the highest percentage of CIM earners among all Portland District high schools - each had 56 percent.
Statewide Results
Statewide, 11,826 graduates, or 36 percent of the class, earned the CIM. That compared with 33 percent the year before and 26 percent when it started five years ago.
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