RE: Exemptions to STAR and other standardized testing

Some hanging issues... Friday is a tough day :-)

Jeanine wrote: "What I would like to see reformed is only having one standard for all children, particularly with the state exit exam. My special education daughter needs to be taught basic academic, employment and life skills to become a contributing  memeber of our society. A vocational exit exam would be a better measurement of her success and the school's ability to have taught her. After all, employability and self-sustainability is the real test for all of our students."

What you experience is the result of the "single curriculum" and "mainstreaming" ideology. HSEE test math at essentially 7th grade level (80% pre-algebra, 20% algebra 1, as I recall). It seems not too much to demand from a high school graduate. But there are groups that this is too much for them, because of special circumstances like your daughter, or because they are just not interested. What is the meaning of "high school graduate" if we even cannot expect such to fluently read or do middle-school math? Should we give "graduation" just because time spent? Other countries have different graduation "titles" for such situations - academic, vocational, etc - we do not. Here lies the bind we put ourselves with the "single curriculum"...