The Choice Channel

“For the moment, the future of California’s high school exit exam is in the courts. A state appeals court will decide, probably in July, whether students can get a diploma if they don’t pass it. But the focus will soon shift to the Legislature, where there’s a bill not to rescind the exit exam, but to use it to substantially weaken the state’s high academic expectations. The Legislature should defeat such an effort. The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires that every child in America be proficient in math and English by 2014. Given California’s definition of proficiency, that will prove impossible to achieve. Some change is needed; otherwise every school will be deemed a failure. But AB 2975 would go too far in lowering the proficiency standards that California students would have to meet.” (05/30/06)