EXAM OPPOSITION DISSERVICE TO KIDS.

Byline: JOE R. HICKS  Local View

A judge recently put the brakes on California's High School Exit Exam, which meant that seniors who were unable to pass a minimal exit exam would be granted diplomas. But in a story that has had more twists and turns than a soap opera, California's Supreme Court has now reinstated the exam, restoring some semblance of meaning to a high school diploma.

The exit exams are hardly rigorous or demanding, yet they've been strongly opposed by some community activist groups and Sacramento politicians who argue that such exams unfairly punish poor and minority students. Do they?

Despite claims of undue hardship, in order to pass the exam, students must only answer 60 percent of the English questions correctly along with 55 percent of the math questions. Nonetheless, community activists and left-leaning politicians have argued that students shouldn't be punished for low-performing schools and incompetent teachers.

But the allegations that our public schools are populated with lazy, uncaring or incompetent teachers and administrators is slanderous and untrue. Most educators care deeply, work hard and do their best.

This is not an argument against the reform of our public education system and its entrenched bureaucracy. But the view that some students' failure to pass a simple test of basic knowledge is the fault of ``The System'' implies that students are passive recipients in a process for which they have no responsibility.

They do. Their parents do, too.

Those truly concerned with the plight of urban youth should take note that the initial results of the statewide exit exams had just 54 percent of black students and 61 percent of Latino students passing the math portion of the test, while 62 percent of black and Latino students passed the English portion. But 91 percent of Asians and 87 percent of whites passed the math portion, and performed at roughly this same level in English.

Once again, the racial learning gap that follows black and Latino students from kindergarten to college classrooms has reared its ugly head. How does passing out meaningless diplomas to underachieving students help close this gap?

It is obvious that a kid graduating from the 12th grade, but functioning at an eighth-grade level, is a recipe for disaster. Today's world of work is a highly competitive environment that will foment frustration and resentment among those unable to keep pace with the demands -- especially among individuals fed a steady diet of rhetoric inferring that they are victims. And the legal ruling to kill the exit exam threatened to make employers even more aware that a high-school diploma may not necessarily mean that students have the skills to make them employable.

Those with an agenda of ``social change'' rejoiced over the judge's decision to toss out exit exams, but it was a pyrrhic victory at best. Students unable to answer eighth- or 10th-grade questions about math and English, but granted a diploma anyway, would have enabled even more failure and frustration among semi-literate youths.

Much uncertainty remains in the wake of the Supreme Court's somewhat vague ruling to restore exit exams. But what's certain is that those opposed to such testing will continue to push for ``different'' standards for poor and minority students. Such efforts will come at the detriment of the very communities they claim to represent.