California debates high school exit requirements for those with disabilities
January 4th, 2008
Natalie Ayala gets good grades in her special education classes, but hasn’t been able to pass the state’s exit exam.
From the Sacramento Bee:
With a special ed exemption expiring this year, California education officials and lawyers representing students with disabilities are trying to negotiate a plan for allowing students in special education to earn a diploma.
Until now, those students have been allowed to graduate even if they could not pass the state exit exams that have been required of other students since 2006. The exit exams were put in place after business leaders complained that many graduates lacked basic math and English skills.
Unless a change is worked out, special education students will be required to pass the math and English tests to earn a diploma along with everyone else, starting with the class of 2008.
Advocates for the disabled – who managed to stave off the test’s consequences for them for two years – say it’s an unfair requirement for kids who live with conditions including mental retardation, autism, deafness and learning disabilities. Many are in classes that don’t teach the 10th grade-level English and eighth grade-level math that’s tested on the exam.
Students with disabilities say they need diplomas to be eligible for special ed college programs and vocational programs.
… Twenty-six states now have exit exams, and the question of how to accommodate special education students has been a struggle in all of them, said Jack Jennings, who studies exit exams nationwide as president of the Center on Education Policy.
In his view, Massachusetts and New York have come up with some of the best solutions. In Massachusetts, students with disabilities can submit an annual portfolio of work instead of taking the exam. And in New York, special ed students can take a different exam, geared for people with disabilities, and still earn a diploma. If they don’t pass that, they can get a special diploma showing they met the requirements of their individual education plans.
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on Friday, January 4th, 2008 at 9:15 am and is filed under No Child Left Behind, autism, deaf/hard of hearing, graduation, learning disabilities, special education.
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February 19th, 2008 at 10:01 am
What bothers me is this: Why do special ed students and their parents want to work around an exit exam? It is the school that should be held accountable for inferior teaching. They should be giving compensatory service to these kids at schools like Landmark. Almost all special ed students with the proper teaching can achieve grade level and should be able to pass the exit exam with proper accommodations such as extended time.
Special ed self-contained classes are not considered college prep. A child spending a semester in one of these classes in language arts during high school keeps them from even applying to a four-year college. This is grossly unfair and discriminatory. Non-public and private LD schools offer small size college prep classes to special ed kids and they can graduate at or near grade level. Why can’t the public schools do the same?