More high schools ditching final exams

zebes
Tue, 29 May 2007 14:13:27 +0000

My D’s school uses this system: 1st 9 weeks some disciplines have projects, the rest have 9 week exams. Next 9 weeks, they reverse so that the opposite disciplines now have the projects and the exams. This is a royal pain in the butt; in many cases the projects have little to no benefit for the actual material that’s being covered in the class. It turns into phenomenal busy work. We’re being told this is being done because some students don’t test well on exams … so this evens the playing field, so to speak. Now we have parents helping their students complete projects, and my D has kids in her honors Algebra II class going, “whoa! I might actually get an A or a B this time because of the project.” At the time she was studying for her AP World History exam this May, she was also doing a World History project. Geesh!

Zebes