Posted on 06/09/2006 6:52:36 AM PDT by SmithL
RICHMOND - During the bittersweet farewell to high school Thursday night, seniors Andrea Mallory and Liliana Valenzuela donned their red caps and gowns, ascended the steps of the Richmond Convention Center stage and grasped the hand of their principal.
After four years at Richmond High, both girls captured a spot on the honor roll. Both plan to attend college. Both dream of entering medicine; Mallory for physical therapy, Valenzuela for nursing.
When Mallory descended the wooden steps, she left proudly clutching a facsimile of the diploma she will pick up next week.
Valenzuela held her own certificate. But in a way, she left empty-handed. She does not qualify for a diploma after failing the English part of the high school exit exam -- a denial she keenly felt during the ceremony.
"I am not OK with that," Valenzuela said.
In what marks a historic moment in California education, nearly 42,000 seniors will not be eligible for a diploma this spring after failing the California High School Exit Exam, a rule that was enforced for the first time this year.
Some of those students lack enough credits for a diploma. However, from 9,000 to 22,000 students will not graduate with their class solely because of the test, according to a state Department of Education estimate.
At Richmond High, a brick compound in the heart of what is known as the state's most dangerous city, nearly a third of the 346 students in the class of 2006 stumbled over the test, having to take it more than once. Paul Ehara, West Contra Costa school district spokesman, said 66 of them will not receive diplomas because of the exam.
"It is a very different graduation," said counselor Carlos Taboada.
As tensions rose throughout the year, the campus morphed into the epicenter of the ongoing fight over the exit exam. Five Richmond seniors formed a core group of plaintiffs who sued the state and California Superintendent of Schools Jack O'Connell over the test in February.
Three named in the complaint -- Valenzuela, Mayela Barragan and honor student Laura Echavarria -- fell short on the exam. Plaintiffs Mayra Ibanez and honor student Noemi Cervantes have since passed it and dropped out of the suit, said Jessica Miller, spokeswoman for law firm Morrison & Foerster, which filed the complaint.
On Thursday, Cervantes waited to take her seat in the auditorium, alternately smiling and nervously teetering on her rhinestone heels. She is headed off to college in Tulsa, Okla., but she seemed painfully aware that her friends will leave only with a worthless sheet of paper.
"I'm happy," Cervantes said, "but at the same time, I'm sad because my friends didn't pass."
Throughout the ceremony, speakers touched on the controversy. Student Patricia Corvera, nearly censored for her speech, decried the test and said all students deserved their diplomas.
School board member Dave Brown tipped his hat to the seniors who sued.
"To the five women ... that have so much courage, I pay tribute to you. The history books will prove you were right," said Brown, who in April proposed that the school board allow the students to graduate regardless of the test.
"Please do not listen to those who say it's impossible," Brown said. "Si se puede, si se puede."
Valenzuela clapped. Echavarria thrust her arms in the air, loosening the white band tied to her wrist in protest of the test.
Though the specter of the controversial test hung in the air, some happy Richmond High graduation traditions brought jubilation.
The band pounded out Santana before segueing into "Pomp and Circumstance." Before the celebratory tossing of the caps, students shifted their tassels from left to right, just on cue.
Afterward, the students sauntered out of the auditorium to the rhythms of "Black Magic Woman."
Mallory celebrated in a blue and green frock from Nicole's in Marin, the hard-won result of money saved from slinging fries at McDonald's in El Cerrito.
The 17-year-old leaves for Knoxville College in Tennessee at the end of summer.
What she will miss about being home in Richmond: singing "I will Bless the Lord" with her mom, Carole Ford, at the Bethel Temple, their Pentecostal church. Strumming India.Arie songs on an acoustic guitar in her room.
The best memories she will carry away from high school: jumping into Beaver Creek fully clothed with friends on a school trip to Lake County. Stealing her first kiss. Plucking out her first gray hair, which she attributed to Advanced Placement calculus. ("It was right here," she says, pointing to a patch of bangs.)
But the most unforgettable aspect of her senior year, she said, was the battle over a test that kept 66 of her classmates from graduating this year.
"I think the biggest thing I'll remember is the exit exam," Mallory said. "I have friends who still haven't passed it, and they're just as smart."
During the ceremony, Valenzuela sat in the back with Cervantes, Echavarria and the honors students who traditionally pick up their diplomas after everyone else. In the audience sat Valenzuela's 3-year-old daughter, Aileen, and mother Adelma Ojeda.
Finally, her name boomed from the speakers.
She stepped to the podium under the bright lights, the last to walk the stage.
On a program on tv they had the attorney defending this girl and someone representing the exit exam. The guy representing the exit exam is the one who said it tests 8th grade proficiency. That is the only time I have heard it.
If it is true it is a shame, it should be shouted from the rooftops. If these kids can't pass an 8th grade proficiency test they have no business whatsoever graduating from high school.
"If she wants to go into nursing she absolutely needs to be fluent in English"
Apparently you have never been in a hospital in California.
I've haven't been in one as a paitent but even 20 years ago doing work on them there were very few nurses that could speak much english or any at all.
"I heard somewhere that the high school exit exam actually tests 8th grade proficiency in these subjects."
Actually the tests require 8th to 10th grade skills in math and English. Way tougher than you heard, eh? That's why we're proud to say, "We're California. Our high school graduates have basic skills of at least 8th to 10th graders."
I've got to note that I am awestruck by the admission standards of the colleges the non-graduates will be attending. Remedial math and English classes must be strong points of their curricula.
That's frightening. I hope they at least were educated by Spanish speakers? Because I don't think you could learn all of the necessary material in a US school without speaking English.
I once consulted
at a firm where an intern
was a high school grad,
an honor student
on her way to college with
some kind of program
putting her on track
to an entry-level job
with the FBI. [!]
An executive
gave this intern some titles
and told her to go
to the library
and take out the books for him.
When the exec left,
the intern pleaded
with all the secretaries
begging one of them
to go get the books
because the intern said she
was always confused
by how libraries
arranged their books. [!] Probably,
that intern is now
an agent-in-charge
of some field office . . . (Bad guys
shudder in their boots . . .)
After four years at Richmond High, both girls captured a spot on the honor roll. Both plan to attend college. Both dream of entering medicine; Mallory for physical therapy, Valenzuela for nursing.When Mallory descended the wooden steps, she left proudly clutching a facsimile of the diploma she will pick up next week.
Valenzuela held her own certificate. But in a way, she left empty-handed. She does not qualify for a diploma after failing the English part of the high school exit exam -- a denial she keenly felt during the ceremony.
The fact that this girl somehow made the honor roll without being able to pass the English portion of the exit exam is a stinging indictment on the quality of education in the state of California.
see post #21. I explained where I heard it.
man !
how rude to expect these kids to actually have learned something and be able to prove it !
I always thought a diploma was a decent attendance award...
*rolls eyes*
The girl that actually did graduate is going to Knoxville College? Well, I guess if she's from the slums of LA, she'll feel right at home...
KC is a "traditionally african-american" college which lost its accreditation several years ago. I did remodeling work at KC in the main dorm years ago, when the building was on the verge of being condemned. (It was only about 15 years old, but the kids had destroyed it) The students, 99% of which hadn't been on campus before arriving, had rioted over the living conditions, so the "college" did just enough work to make them semi-livable.
Although I hate to say it, the students appeared to be a rowdy collection of kids that wouldn't have qualified to attend college elsewhere. A KC janitor I talked to said the "college" busses in kids from the inner cities, and most have no means to leave when they see what the place is like. There is no discipline, and Knoxville College was at that time complete chaos.
Fletcher J
Donde esta papa?
Papa no aqui.
So she had the baby when she was 14 or 15?
Amen. She won't make it through the nursing program if she can't use English proficiently.
You think English is hard, little girl? Try anatomy, physiology, organic chemistry, pharamacology....in ENGLISH.
I'll put her down as a future loser of America, who will then blame it on the system.
Oh, come on! Doctor orders an enema for you and she gives you an empenada. Or the surgeon asks for a retractor and she pulls out her retainer. If you were more culturally aware, you'd understand her better and put up with this little nagging problems. /sarcasm
Let me get this straight: this cage liner is claiming that a kid that cannot pass 10th grade English "is being thwarted from her desire to go into medicine by an evil school administration." I didn't realize that careers in medicine were available to people who cannot graduate from high school. I'm REALLY GLAD, however.
They also have a total of 6 times to take and pass these exams. Once in the 10th grade, twice in the 11th and 3 times in their senior year.
After taking it the first time, and if they fail it, they know where they need extra help. Also, a passing grade is 55% (in math, I believe) and 60% on the English portion.
If they are not going to graduate why do they get to walk across the stage in the ceremony with their betters?
To pick up their self-esteem certificates and paper hats.
The ability to get on honor roll without such skill is a horrible bell weather:
...Both girls captured a spot on the honor roll. Both plan to attend college. Both dream of entering medicine... Valenzuela for nursing.
Newsflash to Valenzuela: if she's not a Filipina she might as well not bother with nursing in CA.
Well you should have studied your school work, done your homework and not screwed around.
Better to learn this now rather than never.
She can't read at a 4th-grade level but she's going to be a doctor?
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