There was a massive sigh of relief last month from about 25,000
special education students and their parents when Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger and state legislators agreed to exempt them from the
state’s new high school exit exam this year.
There was a massive sigh of relief last month from about 25,000 special education students and their parents when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislators agreed to exempt them from the state’s new high school exit exam this year.
That still left more than 100,000 disabled kids due to graduate in the next four years wondering if they will have to pass the exam, featuring math skills through Algebra I and reading, writing and vocabulary skills through the 10th grade level.
The answer – especially after school districts have poured more than $20 million into teaching them the test’s subject matter – should be that yes, even disabled students should have to pass to get a standard high school diploma. Dyslexics graduate from medical schools around the nation every year. Many kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) take mainstream classes and manage to do just fine. So it’s possible for the handicapped to achieve a lot.
But what of students – disabled or not – who pass all their classes for 12 years of elementary and high school, some even excelling, but flunk the exit exam? Should they suffer the disgrace of not graduating with their classes, even though they’ve done all the work everyone else did?
Every teacher has seen students who are simply lousy test-takers and others who perform poorly under time pressure, no matter how often they take a test. Should they be denied diplomas when they’ve done everything except pass one test?
Of course, it isn’t just one test. Students can begin taking the exit exam as early as the 10th grade. Statewide, the vast majority of prospective 2006 graduates had passed the exam by the end of their junior years. Even among special ed students, about 35 percent had passed both parts of the test before their junior year ended, and still more will have passed when this spring’s results come in.
Should those who worked hard to take the test get no recognition for their efforts? That’s essentially the contention of parents, teachers and other exit exam critics who say the test should be disregarded, that everyone who completes all required coursework should graduate.
Amid the controversy, it’s been easy to lose sight of the reason for the exam: To give real meaning to high school diplomas in an era of grade inflation and social promotion when almost no children are held back to repeat a grade of school even if they perform poorly. The exam will let employers assume certain things about people they hire that have not been taken for granted for years.
There is a solution for all this, one used for centuries by universities the world over: Give different diplomas for different levels of achievement.
Every university graduates some students summa cum laude or magna cum laude, and others with distinction. Meanwhile, the vast bulk of graduates get regular diplomas. Everyone there is a college graduate, but the differences let employers and advanced graduate education programs know who’s done the best.
Years later, most college grads realize these distinctions are only temporary, that in the working world they are judged on what they can do, not what their diploma says. Still, a degree of some kind opens the door to many jobs.
Why not do the same with high school graduates? Give those who pass the exam a big E on their sheepskins, and those who meet all other requirements but can’t pass the test plain ones. That would reward students who managed the test well, without destroying the life prospects of kids who could not pass.
It would let employers know which graduates perform well under time pressure – a necessity in many jobs. At the same time, all who pass the required course work could still bill themselves as high school grads and not be placed in the same category as dropouts.
Yes, that would create a hierarchy among graduates, but such differences exist anyway: Student transcripts quickly reveal who took tough advanced placement courses and who coasted by without doing anything special. Hierarchies among grads are as old as colleges, too, so there is plenty of precedent.
Plus, this would be a hierarchy of merit, where all students have multiple chances to pass the exam needed to get the premiere sheepskin.
No doubt, some parents would still claim discrimination, saying handicapped students have less chance at this brass ring. But that’s life in the real world, where the extremely nearsighted cannot be airline pilots and the mute will never become operatic divas.
Differential diplomas would be fair to everyone, which makes them the obvious solution that will allow the exit exam to continue lending meaning to high school graduation, while not removing future opportunities from anyone who has worked hard.
