Exit Exams
Should a student have to pass an exit exam before being awarded a diploma? Is that a good idea? Would such a high-stakes test be fair?
HT to Right on the Left Coast for this article, which is a good read despite the use of the hated "irregardless".
The California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) has two parts:
Like Darren at RotLC, I don't understand the argument that a diploma should be awarded to students whose primary qualification is that they kept showing up, year after year. The biggest problem I have with the Virginia SOLs is that they are micromanaged - in every course, the required state-wide homogeny stifles the ability of teachers to adapt and expand into topics of greater teacher expertise... or student interest! Teachers around the Commonwealth complain that they have been reduced to teaching to the test. Obviously, students are taught a lot of things they won't remember or use as adults - I'm willing to admit that an understanding of the Hawley Smoot Tariff is really not that necessary to most people. And that's coming from a guy who is both a history buff and an amateur economist.
An exit exam that focuses on ensuring minimum competency in the basic "three R's" just seems like an idea no reasonable educator could oppose.
While the high school exit exam may be difficult for some seniors to pass, a majority of South Valley students who were asked about it Tuesday feel it's a necessary test -- even those who haven't yet passed it.
High school senior Amanda Garcia is one of them. She has taken the exit exam three times. She has passed the English component of the two-part exam, but still needs to pass the math part of the test, she said.
HT to Right on the Left Coast for this article, which is a good read despite the use of the hated "irregardless".
The California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) has two parts:
English-language arts and mathematics. English-language arts goes through grade 10 standards. The mathematics portion is a little bit of grade six standards and a lot of grade seven standards, and there are 12 Algebra I questions out of 80 total questions that students are scored on in math.
The math part of the exam consists of all multiple-choice questions...
Students have to get 55 percent correct on the math part of the test and 60 percent correct on the English-language arts part of the test to pass each of those portions.
Like Darren at RotLC, I don't understand the argument that a diploma should be awarded to students whose primary qualification is that they kept showing up, year after year. The biggest problem I have with the Virginia SOLs is that they are micromanaged - in every course, the required state-wide homogeny stifles the ability of teachers to adapt and expand into topics of greater teacher expertise... or student interest! Teachers around the Commonwealth complain that they have been reduced to teaching to the test. Obviously, students are taught a lot of things they won't remember or use as adults - I'm willing to admit that an understanding of the Hawley Smoot Tariff is really not that necessary to most people. And that's coming from a guy who is both a history buff and an amateur economist.
An exit exam that focuses on ensuring minimum competency in the basic "three R's" just seems like an idea no reasonable educator could oppose.
posted by Wulf at
4:05 PM
6 Comments:
You are so right! Because of the [expletive deleted] SOLs, I am hard pressed to find time to teach a novel with my kids -- and this is a freshman high school English course -- not even a high-stakes year!
On top of that, you ought to see how the SOLs measure writing ability with multiple choice questions. It's like seeing how well someone can play basketball by giving his a scantron bubble-in test. aaargh.
By
graycie, at 12:56 AM
Graycie, my subject don't even have a SOL exam at the end of the year, and I think the standards are too restrictive. I see most of the teachers at this school in a whirl to teach to the test.
I am not opposed to high stakes testing, but this is not the way I think it should be done.
By
Wulf, at 8:17 PM
My subject (freshman English) doesn't have an SOL either -- the next one for my babies is 11th grade -- but they have to have my stuff to learn the 10th grade stuff so they can learn . . .
There's a science class without an SOL? What do you teach?
By
graycie, at 5:33 PM
Physics. I don't know why there is no SOL test for physics, but there isn't. On the other hand, I sorta teach to the test for AP.
;)
By
Wulf, at 5:59 PM
Yeah, but you just quoted Hawley Smoot because it's quoted in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Did it help? No, it did not help and the economy sank into further recession.
By
Captain Capitalism, at 6:21 PM
That's true. I thought to myself, I need something everyone has heard of but nobody remembers. Hawley Smoot is perfect.
I remember recognizing that I was a nerd for knowing the answer to Ben Stein's question, before he said it.
By
Wulf, at 6:41 PM
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