High school seniors in the class of 2006 will be the first class required to pass the California High School Exit Exam in order to graduate. Students once had to earn diplomas; today, we mostly hear of students being denied their diplomas because of requirements like the exit exam.
As the Nov. 8 special election bears out, California's education-interest groups have demonstrated once again their support for the status quo in the state's dysfunctional system. True, the governor's bungled reform efforts made the task much easier. But the education coalition, funded primarily by another California Teachers Association raid on members' wallets, led a nightly TV advertising blitzkrieg and sealed the doom of a nascent effort to promote teaching excellence.
Californians' per capita income will drop 11 percent over the first two decades of this century unless the state closes the educational gap of its expanding Latino population, a nonpartisan research center forecast in a report released today.
