Connerly Condemns Suspension of California's High School Exit Exams
by Jim Brown
May 15, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A conservative civil rights activist is disgusted with a judge's decision to do away with California's high school exit exam. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman has sided with attorneys who claim the exam, which California students currently must pass to graduate, discriminates against low-income students and those who have trouble speaking English.A group of high school students and their parents sued the State Department of Education in February, seeking a preliminary injunction to halt the application of the exam for this year's senior class. But Ward Connerly, former University of California regent and founder and chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, says groups that oppose the exam falsely claim poor and minority children are victims of American society.
"The people who are behind this really don't want low-income and 'minority' kids to be held by the same standards as everybody else," Connerly says. "It is their belief that these exams are culturally biased. They don't like the SAT for the same reason."
But Connerly insists that the California high school exit exam is neither unconstitutional nor difficult to pass, and he disagrees with those who argue that the test is biased against minority and low-income students. "If they prepare themselves and adequately get ready to take that exam," he asserts, "then no one is harmed by it."
In fact, the former UC regent says failing to hold these youngsters accountable for a certain level of educational achievement probably does them a greater disservice than requiring them to take the exam. Still, he contends, groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, and the Mexican-American Defense and Legal Education Fund are consistently the first people to support race preferences and lower accountability standards for minority students.
Such groups are not doing the state's children any favor, Connerly contends. "It does more harm to them to set a lower standard, not require accountability on their part, than it does to have a standard or a test for them," he says. And that accountability should be shared between the schools, the students, and the parents, Connerly adds, emphasizing, "It's not just the K-12 situation -- it's their families as well."
The California high school exit exam includes a section of eighth-grade-level math and another section of ninth- and tenth-grade-level English. Students are permitted to take the test several times until they pass.
Connerly has denounced Judge Freeman's decision to suspend the state schools' exit exams. The well-known civil rights activist has long been an outspoken advocate of equal opportunity for all Americans, regardless of race, sex, or ethnic background, and he contends that California's high school graduates should be held to equal standards of accountability and performance as well.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
