The California schools have failed these kids in the most reprehensible way possible, and nobody cares, so long as they get to march at commencement. Apparently 100,000 high school seniors have failed the high school graduation test, but the schools are making provisions to graduate them anyway! These are children who have spent twelve years in school and still not learned enough to pass a basic skills test. But they've "put in their time" so they get to leave now. Does this not prove that high schools are essentially prisons rather than educational facilities?
Gerald Benson, superintendant of the Tulare Joint Union High School District in Central California, said, "It's pretty hard to tell them, 'You can't pass one test, you can't go through the ceremony.' [It] might cause a lot of kids to drop out."
Might cause kids to drop out. Well, we wouldn't want that. If they dropped out, they wouldn't learn anything. Wait, they're not learning anything in school already! Why are these schools not being beseiged by angry parents, demanding that their children be educated? Is it okay if their kids are illiterate, so long as they're kept off the streets until they're 18?
If I were the parent of a high school student (or any student actually) in California, I would be outraged. In fact, I am outraged anyway. Someone should be.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Wow, that's awful! Here in the Oxnard Union School District, if they don't pass, they don't graduate. The kids that don't pass are given lots of remedial instruction and our pass rate has been pretty high. My son said that the test is pretty easy -- he passed as a freshman. Are they actually graduating those kids or letting them go through the ceremony without receiving an official diploma? Either way, it's really awful.
I had heard that the test was pretty easy, too. Like the NCLB for fourth grade, which Chester's teacher said was laughable, and yet how many million kids can't pass it?
The article said school officials were discussing a "Certificate of Completion" for those who had served their time I MEAN put in their four years. Of course a certificate would not be as meaningful as a diploma, so they "planned to work with employers" to get them to recognize it in their hiring process. One can only hope they'll recognize it for what it is, a certificate of illiteracy.
Ooh, this makes me so mad! I don't know who I'm angrier at, though, the school officials or the parents.
Post a Comment