Ugh, hard to believe it could happen in Maine. This is one of the best high schools in the state.
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Explain it to me like I’m 6. Because, as written, I don’t see the issue. Teachers shouldn’t reuse past exams.
When I was in college, many departments freely provided old exams as study prep. But the exams we received were new, although some had similar questions
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Some classes in my D’s HS (and even university) archived old exams as practice tools. Using them was encouraged.
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The problem is that not all kids have access to the tests. Parents aren’t sharing them with all kids, just their own. But yeah, the teachers should write new tests.
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How is that my fault if I help prep my kid but Johnny’s parents down the street don’t?
No issue here - at least as the article reads.
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Again, not the parents’ problem that their older child had Mrs Smith last year and that she’s recycling tests.
All respect for teachers, but if the ones referenced don’t have time to make new tests, I’m guessing they’re also recycling lesson plans and not using the time researching innovations in pedagogy.
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If a teacher is not going to make up new exams every year at the very least collect the old exams back from students. This can easily be solved by teacher behavior.
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Shouldn’t but is it rare that they do?
My kid goes to a pretty highly regarded public HS and they usually can take quizzes or tests home at all, as they don’t want his issue. They do reuse things is my understanding. (Note I hate this as I don’t know how kids learn w/o looking at past assignments. Shrug)
I agree this seems like a school policy problem though
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Let me rephrase. If they want to use past exams, they can’t complain that students studied by using past exams. And administrators are naive if they think preventing materials from leaving the building solves the issue. In HS, we kept the exams, but even still there was a group who, the minute after leaving the classroom after a test, would convene to recreate the questions.
My point is the issue here isn’t with the kids or their parents.
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I’m sure some version of this “sharing” happens amongst students on a regular basis. What seems to stand out here is that there is an exchange network of parents procuring old test questions to give their own kids an advantage. It may not be illegal, but it is certainly unethical and unfair.
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I don’t have a POV on this practice… but I gotta say, back when I was in HS, there wasn’t a single parent in my HS who had any involvement whatsoever with their kids quizzes, exams, etc. I’m the child of TWO educators, and I can guarantee you that the only “test prep” I got was someone yelling “You’re going to be late for school and don’t you have finals or something this week?”
There is something a little off-putting about current parenting practices. Or is it me?
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Yes, this is absolutely true.
Put me in the camp though of teachers should make new tests. My high school used to give out old exams as study tools. While I find the parent involvement here weird, I don’t agree that circulating old tests should be considered cheating.
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Many college fraternities & sororities keep & distribute past tests and class notes and class assignments to their members.
Many law school professors place old tests on reserve in the library. Sometimes these tests, or part of these tests, are reused. (The profs often fail to announce to the class that prior tests are on reserve. Students get this type of tip from older law students or from visiting the professor during office hours.)
Even for SAT College Board publishes old tests. There are prep books. Some people have money to buy them, some don’t. Some people use tutors and others don’t. Some kids have more involved parents with engineering degrees who can help and some don’t.
Where are you drawing the line of unfair advantage?
I think students absolutely should be able to keep tests. Teachers should go over tests with students. Professional teachers should have no problem to create new tests every semester. It is not difficult to create several versions. Yes, it takes time and efforts, but blaming parents for providing support to students is wrong.
I had multiple instances when I had to reteach my kids using their tests, class work. Teachers are not perfect and kids can benefit from multiple approaches. Did I cheat the system? I do not think so.
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Exactly! Teachers should create new tests every time. Or if they are not inclined to do it, not allow students to take the tests home. I see nothing unethical about using old tests to prepare for new ones.
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I disagree with this. I think that studying where you went wrong on a test is really important (and not just for 5 min in the classroom) and leads to being better prepared for finals.
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Sure. But then the teacher should not use the test again.
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Yes. I think the school administration is trying to protect the teachers and put blame on other people.
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This is laughable.
Here’s an excerpt:
He says if students have access to tests and quizzes prior to exams, it undermines the work of teachers and unfairly puts other students at a disadvantage.
He also says students already have access to study guides, study sessions and even sample test questions at school.
“They’re not giving them the full exam in advance, of course,” Springer said. “But they’re preparing them to take those assessments.”
Let’s address the first paragraph. I’d agree if the students had advance copies of the CURRENT exam. Then you know specifically what is being asked. But old exams? Sorry, no. Unless the teachers are re-using the same one every year. In which case I’d say the teachers are not working and being lazy on exam prep.
Second paragraph. The principal is making a case against himself. If sample questions are already available, then we conclude that sample questions are a valid means of self prep. And what is an old exam but a collection of sample questions.
Last paragraph is the most ridiculous one of all. Preparing to take the assessment? Yeah, that’s what studying is, preparing for the assessment.
Whether it’s an old math test or history test, both give the student the opportunity to work similar problems or review concepts.
My engineering profs always had old exams on file in the library so students could review another source of material.
Sounds like the school is trying to recycle old exams. I see no issue here based on the info provided.
Now parental involvement to this level? That’s a different topic but I still don’t see cheating since they didn’t give advance copies of the exam the kids were taking.
I’ll push back a bit on the idea that instructors who reuse exam questions are lazy or wrong. It can be really hard to come up with good exam questions for certain topics, especially well-written multiple choice questions.
I do agree that if you reuse questions verbatim and give the exams back, you’d better expect that only a select subset of students will benefit from that. I think it’s silly for HS teachers to expect that kids won’t share this stuff. The parental involvement is yucky, but honestly not surprising.
My spouse always writes new exams, but it’s not too difficult because the content is all working chemistry problems. It’s not hard to tweak old questions to come up with a new exam.
When I taught classes as the sole instructor I didn’t reuse exam questions in a way that would give anyone with access to old tests an advantage over students without such access. Part of the way I did that was to let the students know in advance which essay questions might appear on their exam. Let’s say I give them 12 possible questions, then the only surprise is which 4 I pick to put on the exam. I’d do a few multiple choice questions but would vary those enough that it wasn’t a big deal if I’d asked something similar in a previous semester.
But when I team-taught a huge required science course, my veteran co-teacher liked to reuse a lot of the exam questions because they were multiple choice and very difficult to write well. I deferred to the way she liked to run it. To prevent unfairness, we didn’t pass back exams. Students could come look over them in one of our offices. I gotta say, teaching that class was a crazy amount of work and if we’d had to write all new exams every time it would have been horrible.
But yeah, if you reuse questions verbatim but still hand exams back, expect that they’ll be shared.
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