Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Graduation tests under fire Two Setbacks for Exit Exams Taken by High School Seniors. A judge said that he was inclined to ban tests as a graduation requirement in California, and a Massachusetts school board voted to issue diplomas to students who had failed. By JESSE McKINLEY. [NYT > National] A judge in California has said he wants to ban high school exit exams based on the judgment that they discriminate against impoverished students and Englisn Language Learners. As a teacher of students who fit both these categories, I intimately understand the struggle for these students to pass high school exit exams. In Georgia there are 5: Lang Arts, Math, Soc Studies, Science, and Writing. Miss one and you can't walk.(There are up to 5 opportunities to pass each before the end of 12th grade.) What I question most is the qualifications of a court to make this call, rather than experts in the fields of education and testing. An interesting note is that most of my English Language Learners pass all five portions of the Georgia High School Graduation Test without ever passing the ESOL exit exam. Apparently, the Grad tests are set at low enough standard that one does not have to even be fully proficient in English to pass them. Either that, or our ESOL exit exam is not an accurate meassure of language proficiency (well, this I can confirm myself, but that's beside the point. There are many native English speakers at my schools who would not pass the ESOL exit test.). It's probably a little of both. 9:41:01 PM    comment []trackback []