Russlyn Ali, The Education Trust-West
April 2002
The new western outpost of The Education Trust recently submitted this testimony by Russlynn Ali to the California state senate. In 18 pages, it does a nice job of explaining why high school diplomas should matter but why, in the United States (including but not limited to California), they don't actually signify much accomplishment. Included therein is a short, interesting account of how San Jose implemented a "default college readiness curriculum," meaning that every student finds him/herself in the college-prep program unless they work at getting themselves into something different. The early results of that reform, it appears, are encouraging. You can find this testimony on the web in PDF form at http://64.224.125.0/main/documents/Edu_trust_west_booklet.pdf.
