California lawmakers scrambled last week to draft emergency legislation to allow about 5,000 students to graduate even though they lost their last chance to take the state-required exit exam.
Officials of both state university systems announced that accepted students would not be denied their places in the incoming freshman class because they hadn’t been able to take the exit exam.
The students were left hanging this summer when the state allowed its contract for the exit exam to expire, canceling the July administration of the test—the last-ditch session for many. That unfinished business was keeping students from enrolling in training courses, the military, and college.
State legislators wrote a bill that would permit those students to graduate, and lawmakers were scheduled to take action on it late last week.
The San Francisco school board had already voted to throw out the exit-exam requirement for the class of 2015.
State schools chief Tom Torlakson issued a statement saying that the contract was allowed to lapse because the exam doesn’t reflect the state’s common-core standards and because of pending legislation that would ax the exit-exam requirement.
Gov. Jerry Brown and state school board President Michael Kirst also issued a statement saying that “students who have been accepted into college should not be prevented from starting class this fall because of a test cancellation they could not control,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
