Has Anyone Been Able to See Their Child's Mid-Term Exams?
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Anonymous
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I live in Montgomery County and I am flabbergasted at how impossible it has been to schedule meetings to actually see my child's unit tests as well as her mid-term exams. My child took several 2 hour exams (2 of which she did quite poorly on) and I think it would be beneficial for her to know what she got wrong so she can prepare better in the future. The exams were not reviewed in class and I get conflicting information of whether or not the exams are even at the school anymore. All I get is that they are held "in a secure location" but some staff members say they are now offsite and some staff members say they are on site for the next 2 weeks, then they go somewhere else. Where? That's a big secret.
I have been trying for 2 weeks to schedule a meeting and I keep getting passed from Principal, to Assistant Principal, to Resource Teachers, to Counselors, and still no meeting scheduled. Totally dysfunctional. I am trying to be a caring, responsible parent but I do have my limits and I cannot take off multiple days at work to have individual meetings just to see the exams one at a time. I also should not have to email and coordinate with 14 staff members to get a time period lined up to see these records. Why doesn't MCPS give children an opportunity to learn from their mistakes? Provide kids an opportunity to see what they did well on but also see what they can improve on. Why can't kids and parents have these documents? The mid-term exams would be great review documents for the finals in June because the finals are cumulative. |
Anonymous
The Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Rights Act (FERPA) protects you in this situation. Under FERPA, parents have the right to inspect and review students educational records. Basically anything with your child's name on it is an "educational record". The scantron or other paper your child used to record answers is an educational record. Furthermore, the school has to respond to "reasonable requests for explanations and interpretations of the record". This has generally been interpreted to mean that even if your child took a test from a test booklet that wasn't personally identifiable as the student's (and thus not considered an "educational record"), the school would still have to show you the test booklet, so that you could reasonably understand the recorded test answers (i.e. a scantron or other multiple choice answer list). The school district may require you to come to school or another reasonable location to view the test. They may also require you to sign a form agree not to disclose the contents of the test. Technically, under the law, schools have to disclose the requested educational record within 45 days of the request. Of course, a school should do this more quickly than that. Write a letter to the principal and fax it to the school so that you have proof of delivery. Restate the date of your original request and the materials you are seeking. Say that you are getting in touch again because none of the staff seem to know how to accomplish the test/answer sheet viewing, and reiterate that you have a right to see these documents under FERPA. In your letter, make sure you reference the date of your original request, so that the 45 days runs from the first request. (Although, don't mention the 45 day timeline in your letter -- this is the maximum allowed by law. It should take far less than that.) See here for more http://www.fetaweb.com/04/ferpa.rooker.ltr.protocols.htm. Also, provide 2 specific dates when you can be available to view all the tests at once. Close by saying that you look forward to hearing from the principal by email about when you can come in to see these materials. I have had to request records this way. I have had teachers, and even principals tell me that they couldn't show me something. I have always politely referenced FERPA, reiterated that I am quite sure that the test material must be disclosed, expressed a willingness to sign a non-disclosure form, and suggested politely that perhaps they should check with a superior. (A teacher checks with a principal, a principal checks with a community superintendent or the central MCPS testing office.) I agree that MCPS' refusal to provide students with review of tests is a failure in one of the most important phases of the teaching loop -- feedback, so that a child can adjust performance. It's ridiculous. Don't let the school put you off. It can be very helpful for you and your student to review this together and do an error analysis. |
Anonymous
| Not the OP, but thanks for the info PP. That us very good to know. |
Anonymous
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I was in an MCPS middle and high school 14-20 years ago, and we never saw our exams then either.
Midterms and finals are held on-site in a secure location (a special closet in the office, for example) until all tests are graded and accounted for. Some students may be making up an exam, thus the difference in how long they are held on-site, and perhaps some staff members have received different information about when the tests would be sent. Don't think it's a big secret, it's just mixed messages that ar ebeing passed on to you. The tests are eventually processed by a testing coordinator and shipped out... to wherever secure materials hang out until they're allowed to be shredded. I agree that this system is counter-productive for students who want to see what they got wrong and understand their mistakes, and most other teachers would agree. Honestly, this is a failure of communication, because generally the message teachers get (in my experience as an educator, at least) is that tests cannot go home and therefore parents cannot view them. There's no rule about going over them in class, but teachers have to turn them in to the testing coordinator so that person can complete the process mentioned above, and of course there is pressure to get the process over and done with as soon as possible. It's a red tape nightmare for all involved. Some teachers I used to work with would take sample questions that many students missed and go over those in class. Perhaps in the future, OP, you and your child might have better luck speaking directly to the teacher ahead of time to let he or she know that you would like to have feedback when her exam is graded. If I were the teacher in this case, it would be much simpler for me to make notes about which items she missed and perhaps make time for an after school or lunch time session to go over it, as per your special request. It's a possibility. |
Anonymous
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OP here -
The school is saying to be able to see all of my daughter's exams (5 exams in total), I have to contact each teacher and each department head and schedule each as a separate meeting. The meetings can only be held before school (which would be before 7am) or after school (at 2pm), not during their 1 hour lunch period because that is considered teacher planning time. In a sense, their demands is denying me access because I do have younger children that are home in the mornings that I have to see off to school (try hiring a sitter to do that before 7am - impossible) and I do have a job. I can take off 1 day, maybe 2, but I cannot take 5 days off from work and the commuting time alone traveling back and forth would be ridiculous. I actually work on Capitol Hill and know a lot about FERPA. I have quoted it to my principal and she doesn't bat an eye. The problem is in the enforcement - not much teeth in that department and a pain in the ass to file a complaint through the Dept. of Education. I also think (and so do some colleagues) that in today's day in age, FERPA needs to be amended to give parents and students the right to have copies of their educational records, not just to be able to read them. If I could demand a copy, then these ridiculous meeting times would not be a roadblock to me reviewing the exams with my child and my child would be able to reference them when preparing for the final. What good does it do the students to have them take a 2 hour exam then never see the actual result? What good does it do MCPS to gather the data then just chuck it somewhere under lock and key that it seems that no one even knows where all the paper goes? Such a waste of time and money and loss of educational potential. |
Anonymous
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So what you want to do is take a copy of all of your child's finals out of the school. What stops you from copying and disseminating the questions on the final all around town, thereby blowing the security of the final exams?
Sure sure I know YOU wouldn't do such a thing but there are people out there who would. If finals were released, they would have to be rewritten every semester. Who's going to do that? BTW, the vast majority of finals in the spring are NOT cumulative. They include material from the spring semester only. There MAY be exceptions, but those are few and far between. Teachers don't go over fall semester finals in class because the students in their classes change after finals are over. |
Anonymous
I am shocked to hear this. How hard can it be to write a final exam for elementary school. It is not college or the GRE we are talking about. |
Anonymous
Elementary school? This thread is about high school! Two hour exams are only given for high school courses. |
Anonymous
| Well, 1.5 hour exams are given in middle school. |
Anonymous
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The exams in the middle of the year are final exams. The material will not be tested again at the end of the year. I know that at the school in which I teach the exams are already shipped out. The is no possibility of going over them. If you were my student's parent, even if you had contacted me earlier it would have been the same thing as you were told: meet before school or after. Unfortunately, I have children too and would not be able to accommodate your schedule in this case. I would give up my lunch or a planning period to go over it with the student.
Ideal? Of course not, but it is reality. FWIW, the only time I have ever had a parent interested in this is when the student is grade grubbing for a point or two on the BCRs to swing them up a letter grade. I have never once had anyone look over their exams for legitimate learning purposes. Sad, but true. That's not to mean you feel that way, OP, but consider that is what we deal with constantly. Maybe your principal is jaded from all of the angry helicopter parents. |
Anonymous
So? It is still not college. The national college entrance exam in China is published every year. Good problems at this level are endless. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
| OK Einstein, who's going to write a new exam EVERY SEMESTER so a few helicopter parents can demand to take snowflake's exam home? The classroom teachers? Who's going to pay for them to do this? Do you have any clue how long it takes to produce a valid final exam? |
Anonymous
Whatever valid means? I used to teach college. And I wrote new exam every semester. So were all my colleagues. All my middle school and high school exams were public after it was done. Why is the MCPS so special? |
Anonymous
I'm the FERPA poster. I agree that parents and children should have access to copies of exams. It's not about being a "snowflake". Looking at your mistakes and understanding why you made them and learning to correct/avoid them is an important part of the learning cycle. All children, snowflakes or not, should be doing this as part of their regular class work. It's a normal part of teaching and as important as teaching the material in the first place. Handing back copies of the exams isn't done for a lot of reasons, all of which together mean that in order to do so, the school district would have to spend a lot more on test development. Schools want consistency across the county (especially at the middle and high school levels). The county wants to ensure that all kids in Algebra, for example, are being taught and tested on the same things. So, they want teachers to administer the same unit and final exams. I think that's a reasonable goal which tries to ensure equity across diverse schools. Another reason is test security. The county wants to make sure that kids (and teachers) aren't cheating to make it look like they're learning. IMO, I think a school district should be spending more on test development every year. When I have looked at my child's unit tests, I have seen some very poorly designed questions, which in a more rigorous test development environment would probably have been weeded out. I have also seen exams constructed by teachers, which have included wrong answers! I think it would be helpful if school districts were constantly adding to the question pool and beta-testing them, like the SAT. Kids could even have access to old tests for studying (some good teachers do provide this). But, again, that would require more money, and a more sophisticated central testing staff. I wouldn't hold my breath for either of those. |