LA H.S. Sophomores Must Pass Test To Graduate in 2006
- Thread starter ivol07
- Start date
The local school district put a test in place that students have to pass to graduate. A lot of them didn't pass, and so of course their solution is to coach the kids to pass that one test rather than teach them the general material they need to know to pass it.
we had these tests for the sophomores in my senior year (last year) at HS. It was just a "test" sort of thing to see how well students faired and didn't really mean anything. I hope they make it mandatory because there are way too many idiots with high school diplomas these days.
high school is a joke
i missed 57 days my freshman year from ditching and made up the classes in 3 weeks @ night school and got all A's in them.
i missed 57 days my freshman year from ditching and made up the classes in 3 weeks @ night school and got all A's in them.
It's a statewide test...less than half the students passed it at my school..it's a pointless test.
My HS had an exam we needed to pass in order to graduate. It was cake.
I don't see what the big deal is. I thought all high schools had it. I was in the class of 00
I don't see what the big deal is. I thought all high schools had it. I was in the class of 00
Zenmervolt
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Kadarin
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On one hand, it's a good idea because you want to make sure that students graduate only when they deserve to do so. On the other hand, you have teachers coaching students for the test instead of teaching the material. I believe it's a very noble concept and a great idea that needs work on its implementation.
here's a little more of the ingenious plan. In california, they'll probably decide to give more money to the schools that have the most students percentage wise that pass these tests, so the administration will tell the teachers to help the students, then we get another one of those situations where a school gets fined because teachers helped students cheat.
I'm going going, back back to Cali Cali.
Edited for truth.
If you miss over a certain number of days in my school system, you fail automatically. 57 is outraegous.
yeah, so once you fail, you go to night school to make up for the F's... isn't that how it goes?
Our school didn't have night school. you had to make up courses in summer school.
and 30 days was max limit of absences you can have in a given year.
and 30 days was max limit of absences you can have in a given year.
Forget the students, it's the parents who'll be complaining that their little Johnny shouldn't be pressured so much that passing relies on only one test. There's a similar test in the NYC elementary schools and it seems like every day, there's something in the news about parents saying it's "unfair" to the kids and their grades should be taken into account.
It's a simple concept: know your stuff, pass the test. Some parents need to realize that the color of failure isn't as gray as they'd like it to be.
This is good, I'll fully support this. Unless you are mentally retarded, you have to take this test and pass it to graduate.
It's good to know we have some standards in k-12 education now, I'm tired of hearing how American kids got their ass kicked by a bunch of third world kids in math competitions. Yet we spend about 10 times in education than they do.
It's good to know we have some standards in k-12 education now, I'm tired of hearing how American kids got their ass kicked by a bunch of third world kids in math competitions. Yet we spend about 10 times in education than they do.
The state of Maryland has a comprehensive SET of tests like that. In fact, they're phasing in a SECOND set of them next year (I was part of the group that set the baseline scores)
Maryland requires these to be taken starting in 7th grade and retaking every year until you pass:
Maryland Functional Math Test (Arithmetic, some pre-alg)
Maryland Functional Reading Test (7th grade level reading)
Maryland Functional Writing Test (Two 7th grade level essays)
And in the new set, to be introduced next year and taken after (or concurrent with) completion of the appropriate content course, and retaken every year until you pass:
Maryland High School Assessment in Algebra (Algebra 2)
Maryand High School Assessment in English (English 9)
Maryland High School Assessment in Biology (Biology)
Maryland High School Assessment in Geography (Geography)
Maryland High School Assessment in Social Studies (US Government)
In addition, there are three self-diagnostic tests that all students are required to take, which never amount to an individual student score, but instead are used to tabulate school scores and determine problem areas for certain schools. These are:
Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (I think this one is defunct with the MSPAP below, but it's administered to third graders, so I don't know)
Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (Administered to 5th and 8th graders. Defunct in 2004, since it was FAR too expensive to grade being a week-long essay and short answer test)
Maryland School Assessment (Student scores are tabulated and returned, but there is no pass or fail. Administered to 8th graders.)
And in California, they have one lousy test? And no doubt it's in seventeen thousand different languages - Maryland's tests come in two languages. English and braille.
For the record, I tutor a 10th grade student in California via teh intarweb. She attends a private school and is, in my opinion, only as competant content-wise as an 8th grader is here. However, she's very intelligent and learns quickly when the information is presented to her in a clear and logical manner, and if a cream-of-the-crop private school is that bad, lord knows how horrendous it is in public facilities.
Her school's main problem seems to be that it's more concerned with beautifying the front office, dropping some HEAVY high end brand-name PCs into it, and paying the administrative staff 6 figures than it is with hiring decent teachers and buying student resources. These kids buy their own textbooks, test forms, etc. and pay a HUGE $200/year lab fee for access to a computer lab that, sadly, is trounced by the stuff I have laying around in my basement. There's no LAN, one shoddy HP inkjet (If you want to print, you get to save to a floppy and take it to the computer connected to the printer) and the machines are mix-and-match Pentium MMX's. They attempt to teach web design (using Frontpage) and a photoshop class on these things, in addition to your everyday business-style stuff.
That's all I have to say, for the moment.
WTF When I was going to HS in the 80's we had finally exams that we had to pass starting in grade 9. If you didn't pass it was back to the same grade for you.
Please tell me that the whole US school system is not like this.
Please tell me that the whole US school system is not like this.
Why do they have to traumatize the students with exams? It's not like HS diploma means anything, whether earned or not 
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