High Grades, No Skills

Joanne Jacobs:

Honor students who can't pass California's graduation exam should be angry, writes Ken at It Comes in Pints? They should be angry at teachers who gave them A's they didn't deserve.

While the hardest questions on the graduation exam require 10th grade English skills and algebra (allegedly an 8th grade skill in California), students with basic skills who guess blindly on the harder multiple-choice questions should be able to get a minimum passing grade in their first, second, third, fourth or fifth try at the test. The minimum passing grade is 60 percent for English and only 55 percent for math.

In Tracy, a girl who claims a 3.6 grade point average says she's failed the math exam five times because teachers didn't teach her right. She doesn't seem to question the validity of her A's and B's.

My great potential is being snuffed by this test.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at February 13, 2006 6:50 AM
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