Daniel Weintraub - the Sacramento Bee's "California Insider" and all-around cutie-pie - mentions a note from a local education professor:
In response to this column Sunday defending the state's high school exit exam, I got an interesting note from an education professor at one of our state universities. She opposes the exam, she said, because only 19 percent of students who were not fluent in English passed the test in 2004. Further, she said, only about 60 percent of students who begin school in California after kindergarten and don't speak English as their native language will be fluent by the 12th grade. "In other words," she writes, "if a student is a second language speaker of English, his or her chances of failing the HSEE are somewhere between 40%-80%. This is not fair."Is this a matter of fairness, or simple fact? Perhaps the situation the professor describes is a reflection of a simple and deliberate policy: if you can't speak English by the 12th grade, you don't get a diploma in California schools...The fact that it's controversial to require students to speak, read and write English before graduating from high school shows just how dysfunctional our education system has become.
Well said. I shudder to think that a professor of education believes the only argument one needs muster against a test is, "It's not fair." Especially when what's allegedly "not fair" is a test requiring a mastery of English for graduation from an American high school.
Daniel's good at pointed, concise conclusions, by the way:
The exam's opponents fear the stigma that will be attached to any student who, failing the test, leaves school without a diploma. Maybe they should worry as much about the prospects for students who for far too long have been leaving high schools with a diploma but without the basic math and English skills they need to survive in society.Posted by kswygert at March 7, 2005 07:24 PM