讓紐約高中文憑變得毫無(wú)意義的努力

讓紐約高中文憑變得毫無(wú)意義的努力

High school diplomas all across New York state will soon be meaningless if the Board of Regents gets away with scrapping a requirement for students that dates back more than 150 years: passing several Regents exams.

如果當(dāng)政委員會(huì)取消了高中畢業(yè)考試——已實(shí)施了150多年的要求，那么紐約州所有的高中文憑將很快變得毫無(wú)意義。

Officially, the board is simply putting a blue-ribbon commission in charge of exploring alternatives to a state-certified diploma, en route to implementing new graduation standards in fall 2020.

按照官方的說(shuō)法，該委員會(huì)只是成立了一個(gè)藍(lán)絲帶委員會(huì)，負(fù)責(zé)探索國(guó)家認(rèn)證文憑的替代品，并在2020年秋季實(shí)施新的畢業(yè)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。

Yet the Regents’ professed goal gives it all away: They’re out to goose graduation rates — and the easiest, fastest way to do that is to simply make it easier to graduate.

然而，當(dāng)政者們公開宣稱的目標(biāo)暴露了一切:他們想要提高畢業(yè)率——而最簡(jiǎn)單、最快的方法就是讓畢業(yè)變得更容易。

Their spokesfolks are dressing it up in noise about “providing different avenues — equally rigorous — for kids to demonstrate they are ready to graduate with a meaningful diploma.” It still comes down to not requiring students to pass objective tests so you can hand diplomas to kids who can’t pass.

他們的代言人正在為“為孩子們提供不同的途徑——同樣嚴(yán)格——來(lái)證明他們已經(jīng)準(zhǔn)備好畢業(yè)并獲得一個(gè)有意義的文憑。”這仍然歸結(jié)于不要求學(xué)生通過(guò)客觀測(cè)試，這樣你就可以把文憑發(fā)給那些不能通過(guò)的孩子。

Yes, the statewide graduation rate should be higher than last year’s 80.4%. As state Chancellor Betty Rosa wrote in February, “The system is not working for everyone and too many students — particularly our most vulnerable students — are leaving high school without a diploma.”

是的，全州的畢業(yè)率應(yīng)該高于去年的80.4%。正如該州州長(zhǎng)貝蒂•羅莎(Betty Rosa)今年2月所寫的那樣，“這個(gè)體系并不適用于所有人，太多的學(xué)生——尤其是我們最弱勢(shì)的學(xué)生——沒有畢業(yè)就離開了高中。”

But killing a key requirement for graduation doesn’t do a thing to stop the system from failing those kids — it just makes the failure less obvious.

但是，為了畢業(yè)而取消一個(gè)關(guān)鍵的要求，并不能阻止這個(gè)讓這些孩子失敗的系統(tǒng)——它只是讓失敗變得不那么明顯。

And that, clearly, is all the current Regents and their political masters really care about.

顯然，這是所有現(xiàn)任當(dāng)政者和他們的政治主人真正關(guān)心的。