Only 28,000 statewide have been here for less than a year, Mockler says. When the state doesn't test immigrant students in English, we know what happens. Fundamentally, anti-testers see test scores as a way to humiliate disadvantaged students and their schools. Students' academic success is foreordained by their parents' income, education and English fluency. I don't believe that.
Test scores are information pointing to what's working and what needs to be changed.
Using the index, I'll explore that question in a future column. They don't believe ignorance is bliss. Joanne Jacobs is a member of the Mercury News editorial board. Her column appears on Mondays and Thursdays.