Quote:And, for incentive, tie something desireable but non-essential to passing all the required tests.
I'm not sure how many people are familiar with the state of Massachusette's MCAS tests, but they are standard test given to students, and are required to pass them in order for them to graduate. The idea stemmed from making a high school diploma mean something, and that anyone holding one had at least certain skills.
The govenor Mitt Romney got a lot of flak for continuing to support MCAS testing. He was publicly boo'd at a rally he attempted to hold at a High School that had some of the worst score results in the state. The point of the rally was to ask, 'what can we [the State] do that will help.' Instead he was boo'd, and sucker punched when they had an honor student bring an emotional mentally retarded student in front of Mitt Romney, and demanded that he give the reasons this student, who has tried so hard, will be denied a high school diploma.
The whole situation made me want to vomit.
A very common criticism of MCAS testing is that 'teachers will start to teach towards the test.' If the goal is to assure students attain a certain skillset, I'm wondering why this is such a bad thing.
Cheers,
Munk