Free Republic

Nearly 500 West Contra Costa high school seniors who have failed the mandatory California Exit Exam could receive diplomas anyway this June if a majority of the school board joins a colleague's call to rebel against the controversial graduation requirement. Trustee David Brown says the graduation test is unfair to many students. One of the other four board members is willing to consider joining Brown in support of the plan. Two board members are adamantly opposed, and the remaining member is undecided. A vote is scheduled for Monday on the proposal, which would grant high school diplomas to students who...

For a 16-year-old, Iris Padilla's resume looks pretty good: Not only is she already a senior close to completing all the credits needed to graduate from Richmond High, she's president of a Latin American culture club and is active in political and religious clubs at school. Next year, Iris wants to go to college and study psychology. But Richmond High might not let her graduate this spring. That's because Iris hasn't passed the exit exam, and she has only one more chance before graduation day to tackle the two-day test, on March 21-22. Iris is one of 73,270 California high...

Call me a cynic, but I think the educrats plan it this way. They wait for challenges to pass from the scene, like Prop.s 74 and 75, and then, once they have won, they literally spit in voters’ faces. The latest outrage: a plan hatched for some community college districts to issue diplomas to high school students without regard to the state requirement that students receive a high school diploma only after they have passed the official state high school exit exam. This end-around maneuver is intended to bail out our failing K-12 system, another effort by state educrats to...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill Friday that would have given special education students a reprieve from the state's high-stakes exit exam. The bill would have implemented a legal settlement between the California Department of Education and the Oakland-based Disability Rights Advocates, which filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of special education students. The bill sent to the governor by the Legislature differed from the settlement, however, and drew objections from the state's school superintendent. Schwarzenegger also vetoed a bill that would have eased the exit exam rules by allowing high school students to graduate without passing...

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - State education officials painted a brighter picture about the percentage of students passing the high school exit exam because they ignored dropouts, according to a study released Tuesday by the University of California, Los Angeles. The study is the latest salvo in the long-standing fight over the state's exit exam, which tests students on their ability to master basic math and English. The mandatory, multiple-choice exam is in line with targets for state accountability and the new federal requirements under the No Child Left Behind law. California high schoolers have been taking the test since...

The Harvard Civil Rights Project did Californians an enormous favor in March when it released a report establishing that high-school dropout rates in the state were more than double what school bureaucrats claimed. ... If anything made plain the insincerity of the teachers union-dominated education establishment in trying to help schools improve, it was this proof that the establishment fudged the numbers. That's why it's so dismaying to see the Harvard group throw its weight behind the educrats' continuing crusade to undermine the centerpiece of California school reforms: making passage of a comprehensive exit exam a condition for a high...

A distressing number of California students have completed 12 years in classrooms but can't read on a tenth-grade level or do eighth-grade math. So they can't pass the state's high-school exit exam within six tries in three years. Should they graduate anyway? The correct answer is no, they shouldn't. Graduating kids who can't meet even minimum standards does them no favors – or their prospective colleges or employers. And it diminishes the meaning and reputation of high-school diplomas for all students, including the majority capable of passing the exit exam. According to the Los Angeles Times, 83 percent of the...

<p>Isn't it time to acknowledge that California, more or less by accident, has created a two-tier public education system, one that works pretty well for youngsters from relatively affluent, white and English-speaking families -- and most Asian Americans -- but abysmally fails for millions of other kids who don't meet those criteria?</p>

<p>SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) --  Lawyers for six students who failed an exam required for high school graduation sued the state Thursday, claiming the test discriminates against minorities and the poor.</p> <p>The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Springfield, also claims the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System is unreliable and unfair.</p>