MCPS ditching High School Final Exam

[Anonymous]

They have a form up to seek comment: http://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/policy-feedback.aspx

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers are against this and the PTA is against this. So in other words, the families who are being served and the people who are real educators are against it, but a handful of people in the curriculum offices and upper-level people are for it? It sounds like the people who are deciding this are gung-ho to dumb things down so no one notices how poor the connections are from what they produce and what is learned.

Well, this is one way to close the achievement gap.

It actually isn't, since MCPS doesn't use high school final exam results as a measure of the achievement gap.

The school I teach at does. We know all of the test scores, exams, quarter grades, etc. of all of the underperforming minorities. We know how many of them do or don't take honors classes, too. Remove the exams and replace it with "projects" and you mean that teachers won't be "encouraged" to "help the struggling students"? Please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid got A's in both the quarters, she will not get an E in the semester exam even if she bombed it. Unless, of course she cheated to get the As in the first place.

And the Final Exam is a part of the grade that goes on the transcript.

What are you smoking?

The final doesn't go on the transcript that goes to colleges

And you have to get a C or above on the final to get an A in the course, even if you got As in both quarters.

The grades of two quarters (approximately 40% each, and the final exam approximately 20% - make up the full 100% of the final grade for the course.

The fact is that a good student who is getting As legitimately in both the quarters knows his material well enough that he can get an A or a B in the final exam without preparation.

Mainly because the final exam is not that difficult. So all the W kids who failed in the finals but had straight As in the quarters are cheaters as well as not very bright.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers are against this and the PTA is against this. So in other words, the families who are being served and the people who are real educators are against it, but a handful of people in the curriculum offices and upper-level people are for it? It sounds like the people who are deciding this are gung-ho to dumb things down so no one notices how poor the connections are from what they produce and what is learned.

Well, this is one way to close the achievement gap.

It actually isn't, since MCPS doesn't use high school final exam results as a measure of the achievement gap.

The school I teach at does. We know all of the test scores, exams, quarter grades, etc. of all of the under-performing minorities. We know how many of them do or don't take honors classes, too. Remove the exams and replace it with "projects" and you mean that teachers won't be "encouraged" to "help the struggling students"? Please.

The people who were failing the algebra finals were kids who had straight As in the quarters. And they were the White privileged kids in W schools, who cannot compete with the Asians. There will never be any attempt to help the under-performing minorities by the powers that be.

Let's not kid ourselves here. All stats are proving that Asians are scoring higher and higher in all academic measurements, and the Whites are falling waaayyy behind. That is the real concern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They have a form up to seek comment: http://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/policy-feedback.aspx

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

So everybody was failing the math exams, so their solution is to get rid of the exams? Brilliant!

I understood getting rid of the MS exams. This, I don't get. So when are kids supposed to learn how to take long exams and cumulative finals? When they get a 2 on the AP? When they bomb them in college and spoil their med school admissions?

American students would be left helpless if they ever had to take the kind of high school exit exams they have in other countries, like the Abitur or the Baccalaureat or Matura or A-levels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid got A's in both the quarters, she will not get an E in the semester exam even if she bombed it. Unless, of course she cheated to get the As in the first place.

And the Final Exam is a part of the grade that goes on the transcript.

What are you smoking?

The final doesn't go on the transcript that goes to colleges

And you have to get a C or above on the final to get an A in the course, even if you got As in both quarters.

The grades of two quarters (approximately 40% each, and the final exam approximately 20% - make up the full 100% of the final grade for the course.

The fact is that a good student who is getting As legitimately in both the quarters knows his material well enough that he can get an A or a B in the final exam without preparation.

Mainly because the final exam is not that difficult. So all the W kids who failed in the finals but had straight As in the quarters are cheaters as well as not very bright.

I don't think it was the W kids failing the exams. Most of them take alg 1 in 6th, 7th or 8th grade anyway. My W kid got nearly straight As and got at worst a B on finals even when they didn't count for anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So everybody was failing the math exams, so their solution is to get rid of the exams? Brilliant!

I understood getting rid of the MS exams. This, I don't get. So when are kids supposed to learn how to take long exams and cumulative finals? When they get a 2 on the AP? When they bomb them in college and spoil their med school admissions?

American students would be left helpless if they ever had to take the kind of high school exit exams they have in other countries, like the Abitur or the Baccalaureat or Matura or A-levels.

+1.

Failing Math finals became embarrassing only when it happened to students in W schools who were getting As in the quarters. The reason they were getting As was because of grade inflation and being allowed to redo the same assignments and same tests multiple times so that they could get an A. These kids were cheating and getting away with it. Unless WaPo did an expose, the grades of final exams was not something anyone gave a thought to.

The underperforming minorities in poor schools were not getting straight As in the two quarters. They probably did not even know how to game the system. Anyhow, when they bombed in the finals it did not make any difference because they were also bombing in the two quarters.

But the A students failing in Finals was too shady to let go by the WaPo reporter. So, now they are doing away with it, so that the grade inflation of the W schools will continue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So everybody was failing the math exams, so their solution is to get rid of the exams? Brilliant!

I understood getting rid of the MS exams. This, I don't get. So when are kids supposed to learn how to take long exams and cumulative finals? When they get a 2 on the AP? When they bomb them in college and spoil their med school admissions?

American students would be left helpless if they ever had to take the kind of high school exit exams they have in other countries, like the Abitur or the Baccalaureat or Matura or A-levels.

When I was in high school, we didn't have two-hour cumulative finals, and yet somehow we managed to get 4s and 5s on the AP tests, graduate from college, and even get into medical school.

[Anonymous]

Interesting that wtop's is only reporting that it is a proposal.

http://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2015/09/mcps-seeking-input-on-proposed-grading-policy-changes/

[Anonymous]

This is a meandering moonwalk to mediocracy:

http://www.examiner.com/article/montgomery-county-nixes-final-exams-after-students-fail-them-droves?CID=examiner_alerts_article

[Anonymous]

So tired of the generalizations and bashing of kids from "W" schools. My kids attend a "W" school and work their butts off for their grades. I've never seen my kids grades inflated, but I have seen some subpar teachers who clearly have no interest in working in a school that they perceive is full of privileged kids. I'm sure there are kids who game the system in every school, but it's unfair to the kids who work hard to assume that they got their grades due to cheating or grade inflation.

[Anonymous]

The articles are so misleading. They don't mention that most kids do not take algebra in hs!

[Anonymous]

Actually Algebra is considered a high school level class in MCPS and is counted as part of the high school GPA for kids in middle school too.

[Anonymous]

Yes but the stats thery are reporting only refer to kids that are actually taking it in 9th grade and above. The stronger math students scores are reported separately. Good reporting would at least mention that.