The Kerfuffle in the Keystone State seems to be over. The Pennsylvania board of education approved the much-disputed exit exams yesterday.
The bickering about graduation tests in Pennsylvania has been going on for a while. In 2008, the state board approved a set of changes intended to close graduation loopholes and better gauge what students know. A big piece of that new approach was a set of end-of-course tests that would replace the state’s high school-level test.
The piling-on began. Many groups saw the proposal as a threat to the “local option” by which students could graduate with a locally designed test. Lawmakers got royally ticked off when the education department went ahead with test development despite a legislative moratorium.
Finally a compromise emerged, and that is what the state board voted on yesterday. The newly approved regulations still are subject to a couple of layers of review, but snags appear unlikely.