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How to save more money: The California Budget. Published in the San Francisco Examiner. How to save more money. Letters, December 28, 2010. I hope the Jerry Brown administration considers all suggestions for reducing the budget problem, ...
This space explores issues in public education policy, and it advocates for a commitment to and a re-examination of the democratic purposes of schools. If there is some urgency in the message, it is due to the current reform efforts that are based on a radical re-invention of education, now spearheaded by a psychometric blitzkrieg of "metastasizing testing" aimed at dismantling a public education system that took almost 200 years to build.
I hope the Jerry Brown administration considers all suggestions for reducing the budget problem, including Dan Walters’ suggestion (“Closing tax loopholes could help California’s budget gap,” Friday).
Walters’ idea would save about $1 billion dollars a year. Here’s how we can save another half-billion: Eliminate the high school exit examination. Analyst Jo Ann Behm has estimated that the combined state and local costs of California’s test exceed $500 million per year.
The most recent review of research on exit exams, done by researchers at the University of Texas, concluded that high school exit exams do not lead to more college attendance, increased student learning or higher employment.
Caught Between Hope and Despair: An Essay Review. Review of Grant, Gerald. (2009). Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Schools in Raleigh.