Proficiency Tests

The California Department of Education has alerted 99 school districts, including Los Angeles Unified, that they are in danger of being abolished, taken over or stripped of administrators and schools under their jurisdiction. But whether these and other harsh measures will come to pass is questionable at best. Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, state officials have not adopted severe punishments against school districts, and they appear reluctant now.

This year's high school seniors with disabilities would be spared from California's new high school exit exam under a legislative agreement announced Thursday. A deal negotiated by state officials would excuse seniors from that obligation if they have physical, learning or emotional disabilities that may have contributed to past failures on the test. Existing rules would have required all students in the class of 2006 to pass the test of English and math to earn diplomas.

Faced with the threat of congressional intervention, federal health officials have agreed to delay for another year the implementation of a 17-year-old testing requirement for pathologists and technicians who read Pap smears. Although data from the first proficiency test given last year showed what health officials called alarming failure rates, pathologist organizations have challenged the adequacy of the test and asked Congress to impose a moratorium.

High school seniors with disabilities will be spared this year from California's new exit exam under legislation signed Monday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The reprieve applies only to special education students who are on track to graduate. All other high school seniors must still pass the English and math test to earn a diploma. Legislators and state education officials must find a permanent solution for special education students, who have higher failure rates than any other group.

A group of 10 high school students and their parents filed a lawsuit Wednesday in San Francisco Superior Court challenging the controversial exit exam nearly all California public high school students must pass to receive a diploma, on the grounds that it adds an unfair hurdle to graduation. The case, filed against the state Board of Education and the state superintendent of public instruction, seeks an injunction to immediately suspend the consequences of the mandatory exam.

Former San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Angela Alioto won't even say how many times she failed the California bar examination before she finally was licensed to practice law. "Consider it to be several," said the antidiscrimination lawyer and daughter of the late San Francisco mayor and famed antitrust lawyer, Joseph Alioto. "And understand," she quickly added, "that for the last two years in a row I have been nominated as a national trial lawyer of the year."

Anthony Fasano's road to the NFL is about to detour around three safety cones sitting on the turf inside the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. No matter that the league has hours of videotape and thick scouting reports that detail his career as a tight end at Notre Dame. Nearly all those who hope to be drafted by the NFL still must complete a series of basic skills tests, including the three-cone drill that measures acceleration and the ability to change directions.

Students from Harvard-Westlake School, an elite private campus in North Hollywood, turned in a remarkable performance on the 2005 Advanced Placement exams. That's hardly surprising, but whether it's a good thing depends in large part on where one comes down in the growing debate over AP courses.

There's nothing like a morning bout with advanced calculus to get Yuliya Rebrova's brain going. It was first period on a recent Friday, and the 16-year-old Taft High School senior was deftly deriving the slope of a tangent line. "Two sine over cosine," she mumbled, "pi over three...." She sighed. Scribbled. Stopped. "Wait," she said. "What's one-quarter minus one-half?" She quickly answered her own question: "Negative one-fourth." A few more scrawls and Julia (as she's called) had her answer.

The NFL scouting combine is supposed to be the place where conjecture comes to die. Players are meticulously weighed, measured, tested and timed -- all in the interest of critiquing them in a controlled environment. But the most eye-catching story to emerge from this year's combine, which ended Tuesday, was based on speculation. Texas quarterback Vince Young scored an unimpressive 16 on his second taking of the Wonderlic test, which is designed to measure mental aptitude.