NO EXIT?

California Postpones Exit Exam (GREG WINTER, July 10, 2003, NY Times)

Faced with failure rates that could bar tens of thousands of students from graduating, the California State Board of Education voted yesterday to postpone the consequences of its high school exit exam for two years.

The 9-to-0 decision came in the wake of a state-sponsored study showing that even if students continued to improve on the exam, as they typically do each year, about one of every five seniors would still have failed next year, when it was supposed to take effect.

By the state's own reckoning, that means as many as 92,000 students would have been denied diplomas in 2004. Now, the exit exams will take effect in 2006.

"From a moral and ethical point of view, our focus is on zero failure," said Reed Hastings, the board's president, adding that the extra time would allow the state's new curriculum to become "further penetrated into the school system."

The reprieve in California is the latest example of the reticence some states have shown when it comes time to impose the significant consequences of the testing movement they have pushed so avidly in recent years. More than two dozen states now have some form of make-or-break exams.

While Ted Kennedy and the Democrats who thought they pulled a fast one when they made the President choke down a disafigured No Child Left Behind Act, it contained two vital features on the path to a completely voucherized system: testing and choice within the public system. Testing will reveal the inadequacy of the public schools. The right to move from a failing school to another public one will create the mechanism and mindset for school choice. And eventually you can shift to a genuinely open system where students have the choice of a range of different option.


MORE:
At School for Hardest Cases, Perseverance, Night and Day (TAMAR LEWIN, July 3, 2003, NY Times)

With academic standards being ratcheted up, and principals increasingly being held accountable for producing good results on statewide tests, most high schools in New York City will not accept young people who are over 17, have a history of school troubles, speak little English, or otherwise seem unlikely to be able to pass the Regents exams and graduate in a reasonable amount of time.

The [Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day High School] was created specifically to serve the students whom other high schools do not want, to give older students with adult responsibilities a second chance.

The school, in Gramercy Park, goes to great lengths to help its 800 students earn a high school diploma. Depending on their academic needs and personal circumstances, the students, who range in age from 17 to 21, can attend classes during the day, at night or on Sundays. In the school's basement, a nonprofit social service agency, Comprehensive Development Inc., uses more than $1 million in private donations to provide tutors, lawyers, social workers and help with anything students might need, like eyeglasses, jobs or a place to live.

While graduation is a milestone at every high school, it was especially precious for the 149 graduates who marched across the stage last week in hand-me-down caps and gowns from the Dalton School, to get diplomas that once seemed beyond their reach.

Give the people more choices and they'll find better answers. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 11, 2003 7:56 AM