We're on our way to [becoming] a second-rate economic power". Legislators joined the charge in 1999, creating a high school exit exam with algebra questions, which takes effect this spring.
Sara Meyer, the chairwoman of the math department here at Dobson High, an 84-acre campus of stucco buildings, said she was one of many teachers who supported the idea of a high school exit exam.
Massachusetts had instituted a new high school exit exam in 1993, and passing it would be required to graduate a decade later.
Putting an end to high school exit testing would be a step toward expanding opportunity for young people and putting the focus back on the resources and supports needed to provide it.
A movement toward high school exit exams has swept the nation in recent years, with almost half the states now requiring, or soon to require, passage of a standardized test as a condition of graduation.
And Carol Burris and John Murphy point out that New York state is on track to impose a similarly difficult high school exit exam on future students.
During a tutoring session last December, Jennifer Mueller, a high school student in Whitman, Mass., came up with a second correct answer for a question on the state's high school exit exam -- an answer that the giant company that designed the test had never anticipated.
Replacing the California high school exit exam with a system that produced a differentiated high school diploma would help employers and provide a fair hurdle to students.
The legislature has ordered a new curriculum and new high school exit exams, but according to the A.C.L.U.
Often they think the high school exit exam is a good indicator of college readiness, but most state exams are way below college credit cut scores on placement tests.
Our RDD design takes advantage of the fact that the beneficiaries of the program are selected based on a government mandated procedure to rank individuals at the "department" (similar to geographic regions in the U.S). level based on a cutoff score in their high school exit exams.
