Op-ed: Exit exams benefit students with disabilities
Thursday, August 7th, 2008Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, Lance T. Izumi refutes arguments made by San Francisco school officials that it’s unfair to require students with disabilities to pass the California exit exam in order to graduate.
California’s exit exam sets the bar extremely low, and consequently many students with special needs have a good chance to pass it, Izumi writes. This is a good thing, he says, because it encourages schools to work harder at educating students with disabilities.
If students with special needs were exempted from the exams, schools might be tempted to artificially inflate their exam passage rates by dumping low-performing students in special ed classrooms. Writes Izumi:
A positive agenda focused on getting special ed students to pass the exit exam will, in most cases, help these young people succeed in life much more than compassionate defeatism.
Izumi is senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute.
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