High School Exit Exams

There has always been controversy on whether exit exams should be required for a high school student’s graduation. Exit exams cause narrow statewide curriculum, too much emphasis on a single test, stress for the students, and stress for the teachers trying to reach state score standards; however on the optimistic view, standardized testing assures that students work harder, schools discover areas of weakness, and allows schools to improve performance. Exit exams hurt students who pass or fail them.Placing so much importance on one test, that is currently at a tenth grade level is asinine. These tests are supposed to help us improve, strengthen the students weaknesses, and give the students a better understanding of the subject they are learning; not keep them at a level that will never prepare them for anything. Too much emphasis on a single test gets students nowhere.

Students have had to rely on just one test to pass them for the whole semester (FairTest). Although the tests require students to retain information until the end of the semester, I believe it is wrong to allow just a single test to decide whether an entire semester’s work will be rewarded will the credit that may have been well earned. Even general standardized tests such as the SAT, which almost every high school student has taken, are not fair to students who may come from a poor educational background (Standardized Minds). Students are at a disadvantage if they have test taking anxiety, a condition that many students suffer from. If a student is having a bad day or going through a rough time on a test day, this may also determine their entire semester’s work.

Montgomery Blair High School has a discipline rule, where they fail students who show up to class late nine times, and students who were absences three or more times, without an excuse note. This new rule causes students to fall behind in their classes, and many students fail their class because they couldn’t make it on time. Students eventually stop coming to class because they believe that there is no use in coming to a class that they will fail because they were late. This new rule does not care if the students have a good grade or not, it just fails students who have three or more unexcused absences. There are many different ways to discipline students in a healthy way, then ways that will lead them to failures in the future.

"” Stress from theses tests have become so common that there are now instructions on how to deal with it. It is no longer just taking the test for students, but learning to preform under the stress and anxiety brought by the test. “Critical thinking cannot be tested accurately using standardized tests. Also many students who have grasped the main topics and concord the materials have not scored well on these tests due to stress anxiety.” A student is made up of more than just a number, for each student has creativity and personality that can never be measured by a standardized test. A student may be failing a class but it is the most challenging class in the school.

The three main reasons for me to believe that exams are unfair assessments of progress are: the effects of pressure, the reliability of the exam result and the purpose of study. First of all, exams cause too much pressure for students. Some students commit suicide before they take an exam because they do not have self-confidence to face to the exam. Some students commit suicide after their exams because they can not get good marks in their exams and they can not stand the pressure of their parents. In addition, many students usually forget all of the things that they have already learned when they are taking their exams because they are too nervous, but they can remember all the things again after they finish their exams.

Students have been challenged annually by these test, and most students do not score in the acceptable range in the United States which can affect schools tremendously. Schools around the country would take their students scores to see where students have difficulty at most. Teachers do not know how to prepare their students for these assessments and students are just willing to give up due to the lack of preperation for these test. If the United States is ranked as one of the smartest countries in the world, it is impossible to think that most students do not come to par with the expected scores from these test. Schools aren’t benefitting from these tests anymore because students are just dropping out or not taking the test as serious.

Testing and labelling students through testing detracts from students who many not test well but with classroom instruction can exceed the goals. My sister, Sarah is a perfect example of the testing. Sarah did ... ... middle of paper ... ... accepted into STEM was a priviledge being a part of a social community of extremely smart and average students. The program is controversial since many students who are qualified for STEM are not accepted and often students who are accepted into STEM are unprepared receiving poor grades, cannot keep up with the coursework and often revert back to the regular high school program. The placement of students who are ill prepared for the STEM program is not beneficial to the student social leaving a feeling of failure and a lot to make up since the coursework in STEM is different.

State Exams are an unfair way of determining whether a student should or should not receive his or her diploma. Most students work very hard throughout high school to receive good grades. That should be enough to determine whether a student should pass high school. There are many intelligent students which do not have good test taking skills. State exams keep many good students from graduating and teachers have to narrow their lesson plans for these types of State exams.

In the article “In praise of the “F” Word” Mary Sherry discusses the “F” word, which means failure. Basically Mary Sherry stated that the kids of today are getting cheated out of a good education. They are passing through the school system because some are good kids and they do not create any problems in the classroom. But, at the same time employers are also being cheated because they expect graduates to have the basic skills. She also stated that Diplomas are considered meaningless because most of these kids who were awarded one could not read or write properly and therefore, they are back in night school along with adults who are trying to get their G.E.D.

“In Praise of The F Word” is a perfect example as to why the ZAP program in my school is a pointless program that is actually hurting their students in the long run. Seeing unimportant programs and rules like this, makes kids not take high school serious. Although that is just one example, from one school, there are several different unimportant issues’ that also cause students to think of high school as a