Shooting Down CAHSEE

Testing opponents are celebrating a California judge's striking down of the Golden State's "must pass" high school exit exam, the CAHSEE.

Some 47,000 students who had yet to pass the examination may now collect their high school diplomas.

Since the exam has been tossed out, whether or not students graduate from high school reverts back to whether or not students have earned passing grades in their coursework.

As we've said before, we're not surprised that the exam was nullified by the courts.

Out here in California, a tried and true method for successfully combatting legislation that one doesn't like is to shop around for a sympathetic judge who will overturn the law.

The California High School Exit Examiniation has been on the books since 2000 and has been given to high school students since spring of 2001. The test consists of a section of eighth-grade-level math and one of ninth and 10th-grade-level English.

Students are given their first opportunity to pass the test toward the end of 10th grade.

Under CAHSEE's guidelines, students were to have no less than five additional opportunities to retake those parts of the examination which they had not passed.

The "must pass" provision of the law was set to go into effect with the graduating class of 2006. This provision had already been delayed two years due to low passing rates and had been recently been waived for those students with learning disabilities.

Via: School Me!

Related: Polski3 asks Why Bother? Teacher Lillian Perry calls it a Victory for the Dummies. More MSM here. ------------------------------See our latest education-related entries right here.