More high schools ditching final exams

ejr1
Tue, 29 May 2007 23:35:00 +0000

Ah, yes. Our school is becoming more diverse and our failure rate is growing. So, instead of allowing it to grow and make the kids adjust and do homework, etc., the administration has been talking about “alternate assessments.” Apparently because so many kids refuse to read outside of class, or do any work outside of class (and many do nothing in class, either), in an attempt to get around this, we are supposed to start getting creative and find other ways of assessing the kids. (Class discussions were pretty sad when veyr few read the book, so we have had to play tapes of the novels, etc., in class, and not assign ourside reading in regulars classes. Honors are better and the AP kids generally do their work.) Each department has been able to determine their grade distributions. Math had 90% exams, 10% homework district-wide, and Spanish had 50% exams-50% daily, oral, and homework. Next year, the whole district is going 60% exams and 40% daily and homework. Homework cannot equal more than 10% of their grade. What they don’t realize is that we expect the failure rate to increase, rather than decrease. Those kids who didn’t do well on tests in foreign language but did their work ususally passed. Now, with the tests weighted more, those borderline kids will fail. It will hurt our department. Math will be helped, but those kids might not pass the graduation exams, if the grading is easier. They have to take finals first semester, but can exempt out second.