I was surprised to hear that my high school daughter has zero final exams or projects. In one class, an art course, though she has a final project she has no clue how things are to be graded. Does any teacher actually care about retention or learning goals?
All I can tell you is that if you do, students and parents get VERY annoyed. They don't want anything interfering with that GPA, and a properly weighted final exams certainly might.
This is a great post, however there needs to be re-emphasis on developing a culture where these tests matter. Over my 20-year career as a high school science teacher, I have seen the late May and early June shift from an emphasis on Regents Exams (I live in NY) to graduation, field trips, prom, etc. The results of these state exams have been "outsourced" to teachers whose courses end in those exams. It really needs to be a building-wide and district-wide priority. We either ALL care about these tests, or we don't.
Additionally, these tests need to be both fair and motivated by testing to see if a student has learned the material. More and more, I see "gotcha" questions about a science topic that no normal person would ever ask—it's just tricky for the sake of being tricky. While I believe in the principle behind your article, the tests have become ends in and of themselves, which has frustrated a lot of people.
Great series. I look forward to reading more of your posts.
Might be the hardest proposal to do politically. May not have a single stakeholder who supports it: as you said, most district leaders are going to be terrified of low performance. Doesn’t even include the push back from teachers, unions, some parents.
It’s hard to implement as well. A lot of schools don’t have a curriculum for every subject that’s tightly aligned. Hiring a third party to write and score assessments could get pretty expensive. Especially if you’re including elective classes. My school has a shitty skills based common assessment for ELA, Math, Science and History.
The Board has absolutely approved a curriculum and resources for each course -- that's their duty. The parents should have a reasonable expectation that these materials are being covered. If they aren't why not?
Do our teachers need training because they aren't able to communicate the basics in a way that students retain?
Do we need a new curriculum?
Is POLICY preventing students from doing the work of learning across these courses?
Are the teaches injecting their own beliefs and ideas that are not approved and burning classroom time to do so and, thus, not covering the prescribed curriculum?
Are the teachers phoning it in because they control the grades (and their workload)?
This is the kind of data we need to uncover the answers to these questions.
More importantly, if you know there's a big damn test at the end, you're a hell of a lot more motivated to focus on the JOB, and not anyone's pet project, whether that be coming down from Ed.Ds or classroom teachers or PTA moms.
You start aligning teachers to teaching the things they're supposed to be teaching and you start to see the problems in stark relief.
But, as you and I both know, there is precious little political will to do something like this. It would expose too many skeletons in too many closets.
I was surprised to hear that my high school daughter has zero final exams or projects. In one class, an art course, though she has a final project she has no clue how things are to be graded. Does any teacher actually care about retention or learning goals?
All I can tell you is that if you do, students and parents get VERY annoyed. They don't want anything interfering with that GPA, and a properly weighted final exams certainly might.
This is a great post, however there needs to be re-emphasis on developing a culture where these tests matter. Over my 20-year career as a high school science teacher, I have seen the late May and early June shift from an emphasis on Regents Exams (I live in NY) to graduation, field trips, prom, etc. The results of these state exams have been "outsourced" to teachers whose courses end in those exams. It really needs to be a building-wide and district-wide priority. We either ALL care about these tests, or we don't.
Additionally, these tests need to be both fair and motivated by testing to see if a student has learned the material. More and more, I see "gotcha" questions about a science topic that no normal person would ever ask—it's just tricky for the sake of being tricky. While I believe in the principle behind your article, the tests have become ends in and of themselves, which has frustrated a lot of people.
Great series. I look forward to reading more of your posts.
Might be the hardest proposal to do politically. May not have a single stakeholder who supports it: as you said, most district leaders are going to be terrified of low performance. Doesn’t even include the push back from teachers, unions, some parents.
It’s hard to implement as well. A lot of schools don’t have a curriculum for every subject that’s tightly aligned. Hiring a third party to write and score assessments could get pretty expensive. Especially if you’re including elective classes. My school has a shitty skills based common assessment for ELA, Math, Science and History.
I agree -- and that's why the recommendation.
The Board has absolutely approved a curriculum and resources for each course -- that's their duty. The parents should have a reasonable expectation that these materials are being covered. If they aren't why not?
Do our teachers need training because they aren't able to communicate the basics in a way that students retain?
Do we need a new curriculum?
Is POLICY preventing students from doing the work of learning across these courses?
Are the teaches injecting their own beliefs and ideas that are not approved and burning classroom time to do so and, thus, not covering the prescribed curriculum?
Are the teachers phoning it in because they control the grades (and their workload)?
This is the kind of data we need to uncover the answers to these questions.
More importantly, if you know there's a big damn test at the end, you're a hell of a lot more motivated to focus on the JOB, and not anyone's pet project, whether that be coming down from Ed.Ds or classroom teachers or PTA moms.
You start aligning teachers to teaching the things they're supposed to be teaching and you start to see the problems in stark relief.
But, as you and I both know, there is precious little political will to do something like this. It would expose too many skeletons in too many closets.
We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard!
https://youtu.be/zyiQl2mDHsE?si=0r5TCC6poMbxwdLx