Judge suspends exit exam
Thousands of high school seniors who have failed the state'’s exit exam could be eligible for diplomas anyway after an Alameda County Superior Court Judge on Friday suspended the test's requirements for the Class of 2006.
So as not to hurt their little feelings by depriving them of something they haven't earned, the state is going to make sure that any moron who managed to at least show up on campus enough days will graduate. You needn't have learned anything, just have been there.
The exit exam is a real ball breaker too. You only have five tries over three years to get 50% right. I know I'm an old fart, but the pass/fail line use to be 60%, and you only got one shot. Oh, and the test is geared to an8th grade level, so you only had five years to achieve this lofty level.
Starting this year, passing the language-arts and math test was to be a requirement for earning a high school diploma. But a lawsuit filed in February charged that the requirement is unfair to poor students and to those learning English who might not have received equal preparation.
What is the state of our schools that they cannot teach to an 8th grade level over five years, even in the poorer school districts? We spend around $10,000 per student per year. I would like to know what the money gets spent on. If they would stop the BS of teaching kids in their native language and put them in an immersion program there wouldn't be this inadequate preparation for learning in English.
I watched kids on the news protesting yesterday (a school day) that without a diploma, they wouldn't be able to get jobs or go on to college. I have news for these children, with this piece of paper that signifies nothing, they still won't be able to get a job or go to college (outside of our fine UC system that will be forced to honor these pseudo-documents).
The sad thing is that now all graduates from Kalifornia will be suspect. Did this kid really apply themselves and learn at least enough to pass the 8th grade, or is this one of those who got passed on so they wouldn't suffer the shame of not qualifying?
People might as well pull their kid out of school and enroll them in a commercial GED school. A diploma from them would be worth more.
3 comments:
And they wonder why I refuse to live in kalifornistan.
The sad thing is that now all graduates from Kalifornia will be suspect.
No, they already were suspect as well as the graduates from mot of the University system except for Stanford and Cal Tech. Florida is much the same way although the clolleges are not yet the leftwing hot beds of the left coast. But the Teachers Unions are trying hard and probably will succeed before long in convincing a judge that tests are not fair so they should just not give them.
It if high time that local communties took back the school system from the teachers unions and the state and fereral governments. I am in full support of those who home school the kids--at least they are teaching them to read and write and baseic math which is more than about half of the graduating seniors can do now.
My boy is going through Glendale Unified School District, same as I did. When he started, I made sure they were teaching phonics and had dumped "new math". Their history was a little sketchy, but I just filled in the blanks, so I feel pretty good about his education.
With this ruling happening just before he graduates, I'm a little worried whether the diploma will be any good.
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