Free Republic

SACRAMENTO — California has permanently scrapped its high school exit exam under legislation signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday. The California High School Exit Examination was a requirement to receive a diploma in the state, but the legislature voted in 2015 to drop it for the high school classes of 2015 to 2018. Diplomas were retroactively awarded to anyone who met all other graduation requirements after the test became a mandatory must-pass exam in 2004. That resulted in an estimated 40,000 former high school students receiving their diplomas. The bill signed by Brown, AB830 by Ash Kalra, D-San Jose,...

California has spent tens of billions of extra dollars on its K-12 school system in recent years on promises that its abysmal levels of academic achievement – especially those of disadvantaged children – would be improved. And what have those massive expenditures – a 50 percent increase in per-pupil spending – and a massive reworking of school curricula accomplished? Fewer than half of California’s children are meeting English standards and fewer than 38 percent are making the grade in math. Not much, the latest results from annual testing indicate.