Tidbits From The High School Exit Exam

Dan Weintraub, blogger extraordinaire for the major Sacramento newspaper, has uncovered some interesting facts about the administration of the California High School Exit Exam and the elimination of bilingual education in California (state law now allows for some transition classes, and then students are taught in "regular" classes and English Learners are held to the same standards as everyone else).

[S]tudents who started school speaking another language but were later reclassified as fluent in English are passing the test at a higher rate than students in general.

Excellent news for everyone except those who think that English Learners should be ghettoized in their own special classrooms for their entire school careers, as was done with bilingual education (that was anything but bilingual).

The report also noted that 90,000 10th grade students remained classified as English learners -- meaning they are not yet fluent -- and more than half of them have been registered in US schools for ten years or more.

Obviously we still have some room for improvement, but at least we're moving in the right direction.