The Meaning of a High School Diploma
Published July 29, 2009 @ 12:49AM PT
While carefully following the latest on the New Jersey political front last week, I also had an eye westward on the budget brouhaha in my native state, California. Included in the California budget deal are changes in the California High School Exit Exam policy that could make a big difference for thousands of students with disabilities who, in previous years, have been denied a high school diploma: Under the deal, the exit exam graduation requirement for special education students will be waived, so that special education students in the class of 2009 and, potentially, afterwards would not have to pass the test to graduate. Education officials are currently trying to figure out what to do for the many, many (over 10,000) students with disabilities from the classes of 2008 and 2009 who passed all their graduation requirements except for the exit exam.
As noted in the July 28th SFGate:
The exit exam "has been an unmitigated disaster for thousands of children with disabilities," said Sid Wolinsky, Disability Rights Advocates' director of litigation. "They've earned (a diploma) by every possible measure except this one-size-fits-all standardized exam."
Wolinsky's organization says 16,000 disabled students fail to pass the exit exam each year. Many of them met all other requirements for graduation.
Susan Schneider's autistic son Michael is one of them.
The Vacaville teenager, a high school senior last year, never passed the exit exam and received a certificate of completion in June.
He satisfied every other graduation requirement, but despite multiple tries, he couldn't pass either the math or English portions of the exit exam. He simply couldn't demonstrate his knowledge that way, his mother said.
Michael is going back to school in the fall; he can do so until he is 22, unless, of course, he is able to graduate.
The changes in the exit exam in California recall a small controversy that occurred in June in Vermont, when 18-year-old Todd Geraci was at first not going to be allowed to graduate from the People's Academy in Morrisville. Geraci had not yet completed work included in his individual education program, including social and other goals; Julie Sullivan, Geraci's mother, filed and won a court injunction that required the school to allow him to graduate with his classmates.
A diploma should be something that one earns because one has completed certain requirements. One concern that might be raised about the new changes to the exit exam is that a(n unintentional) message is being sent to special ed students that requirements are being "watered down" for them. On the other hand, being able to graduate with one's fellow classmates and move on in a group, in a community: These are other, perhaps less tangible aspects of a high school diploma that nonetheless mean a lot.
At the moment, I've just been hoping that Charlie can hang on and get through middle school, in one piece (more or less). If his academics continue at the rate they are now (v-e-e-e-r-r-y slow and gradual), Charlie would not be ready to take something like an exit exam, certainly not in subjects like English and Math. When he is ready to graduate according to his age, I think he should receive recognition for making it through all those years, for hanging in there, in a school and setting that's not the most appropriate for his learning needs---certainly, there are challenges and obstacles he's faced and learned to work through that many of us can only imagine.
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Comments (6)
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Author
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Kristina is a Classics professor in Jersey City, New Jersey, a blogger (formerly at AutismVox), a translator (of Virgil), and an advocate every day for her son, Charlie.
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I can appreciate that you may not receive the same diploma as another child who passes the exam. But I don't see why you don't graduate from your program along with the rest of your class. You earned your "diploma" (certificate of completion) as much as they did.... why not get the "party" that goes with it. Now, being in a self-contained classroom do you graduate with your peers at 18 or at 21 when you've completed your program.... does it matter??
As for the child who didn't complete the IEP, I have no opinion b/c I wasn't there to help write it - I always have an opinion on my children's IEP's and they've been known to change IEP's due to that opinion - it may simply have been impossible due to his disabilities for him to meet the criteria written in the IEP... but that was up to the Courts to decide not the public.
Posted by Fw2 farmwifetwo on 07/29/2009 @ 04:49AM PT
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I wish that we still had solid vocational and apprentice systems that have standing as a respectable and respected alternative for the academically based HS diploma.
Not living in CA (now) I don't have familiarity with this exam, difficulty or method of testing. Was there a process of developing alternatives? If that was the case then I think that charges of "watering down" would be less likely. Is this the fallout from the past protests that HS diplomas were sometimes based on "warm body in chair for x amount of time"?
Personally, given the dropoff on what's available after leaving the education system/graduating, there are advantages to getting in as much as possible under IDEA if a student needs it (access to expensive AAC technology comes to mind as one that's often mentioned). (We realized some significant holes in our older daughter's IEP after she entered our local JC and we no longer had the entitlements of IDEA. An extra 6 months would have been useful).
Posted by Regina Claypool-Frey on 07/29/2009 @ 11:12AM PT
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California is not the only state in the country that places significant road blocks to autistic and other special needs children receiving a high school diploma. Florida does as well with its FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test). A "certificate of completion" is worthless when these children seek admission to many junior colleges or technical schools that could help them get jobs and be contributing members of our society. Florida law requires that this test given annually beginning in the 3rd grade to all students based on their grade level regardless of what level their IEP shows they are performing at. In 3rd grade, if a student doesn't pass the reading part, he or she is retained, even if they are successful in other testing. This happens again in 8th grade with writing. The current graduation requirement is that ALL sections of the test--reading, math, writing, science and social studies be passed at the 10th grade level in order to graduate.
Posted by Kathryn Savage on 07/29/2009 @ 11:48AM PT
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My preference is for Charlie to remain in the school system as long as he can; my suspicion is that they'll be a desire to "move him on and up and out" as soon as possible. He's exempt from standardized testing and not on an academic "track."
Posted by Kristina Chew on 07/30/2009 @ 06:14AM PT
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One of the problems facing community colleges, state universities, and even large research institutions (such as where I am) is that so many students are taking an extra year, or even more, to complete undergraduate programs. I've taught remedial courses (no one ever knows what to calls these) at a CC, CSU, and at UofMN.
Students receive no or partial credit for these courses, but have to pay full tuition. That means more debt, more stress, and fewer options for students. Those courses also take faculty from regular courses -- affecting everyone.
We *must* invest more in K12 and have students prepared for vocational programs or higher education. Unprepared, many ill-prepared students leave the university without a degree -- but with the debts.
Posted by Christopher Wyatt on 07/30/2009 @ 10:18PM PT
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My son Andrew--in middle school, getting all A's and B's--has an IEP which gives him extra time for testing...yet it isn't always followed. He informed me after we received the test scores which devastated him that "things were different", that he wasn't allowed to take all the time he needed as he had been in the past. I'm not sure how to verify that at this point.
I agree with Christopher that we must invest more in K-12 education. That includes alternative testing without the stress of time limits that frequently unglues many kids like my son who is in regular education classes for science and social studies, and ESE for reading, language arts and math.
Respected vocational programs are a definite must. Bravo Regina.
Posted by Kathryn Savage on 08/01/2009 @ 10:33AM PT
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