Raising the Bar
Posted by drpezz on March 10, 2008
I read an article today about high school seniors who are trying to pass the WASL in order to graduate. While I believe a minimum standard is acceptable for students to reach, I also feel that the credits earned should be the standard. However, that is not really my comment for today.
I find it odd that people have no problem raising the bar for students, but often these same people do not tolerate a higher failure rate. It would only seem to reason that making graduation more difficult would result in more students not achieving the new standard, at least temporarily. Every change in a system necessitates time to adjust, but I don’t really see or hear many admissions to this effect.
Betty said
One of my daughters was caught up in the process of changing from one type of state test to another and failed the math portion the first time she took it. I sent her to a tutor who told me that my daughter knew all of the material but had failed the test due to the new type of questioning. She passed the test the second time she took it, but there was a lot of stress involved. I’m glad I went to school when I only had to worry about passing the exams given for each class. I’m not sure I could have dealt with the pressure they put on kids today.
mrschili said
Oh, and DOESN’T this PISS ME OFF at TCC?! “We need to be more academically rigorous, we need to garner more respect in the community for turning out well-qualified and educated students, but we don’t want anyone to fail. Gotta keep the retention rates up!”
These people just don’t get it. For starters, an AP English class in a HIGH SCHOOL would be more than most of these students can handle. There’s going to be an uncomfortable period of adjustment. The kids will either rise to the standards or not, but that bar REALLY needs to be lifted all down the line; my students didn’t get to me without these skills because the teachers they had before me had strict standards.