Some people deserve a second chance, but it shouldn’t be given to someone that doesn’t show effort towards school. If someone is failing a class you can’t always blame the student. You have to put in perspective that the teacher could be bad at teaching,or perhaps the student missed a lot of class due to being sick,or maybe the class is just too hard. So however, handing out extra credit could be tolerable to the students that show effort, and not to the students who mess around in class. One reason a student should receive extra credit to pass, is that they have trouble with that one specific subject.
More so, it is being done internally by teachers (Falk, 616). The stakes are so high they manipulate test results by keeping certain students out of the testing environment. It has been reported that kids were purposely held back so that their performance will not bring down the test scores that the more intelligent students submit. I agree with that Lindsay Jillson argues about how standardized testing has jeopardized a student’s future because of the sanctions that are given to them for being less intelligent. I just do not understand why the main focus of our education has to be all about test.
It appears that testing is a waste of time, but in reality, it prepares students for future success. Another question that occurs is: What are students gaining from these different tests each year? Many people debate whether the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is considered to be pointless. Maybe these tests are teaching students accountability and responsibility, two vital tools for success in life. Within in the article, “No Child Left Behind: Test-Obsessed Education Won’t Move Us Ahead” the author, David Marshak, slashes the No Child Left Behind Act.
Cheating, fear of failure are just some of the examples that existing in the graded-oriented environment. Measureable outcomes are necessary but it doesn’t mean that teachers have to turn everything into numbers; in fact grades are the “least significant results of learning”. Although the absence of “assessment-based grading” is a necessary; teachers should consider these following grading techniques: replace numbers and letter with rubrics, prepare students to every test without fortify their knowledge, post grades online only add more destructive effects on learning, students are willing to read your comments about their works and finally
Instead of learning some actual useful information, teachers fret over the test rather than about how much that student is actually absorbing into their head. It has become a practice to ‘teach the test’ in today’s teaching world. Tests like SAT, ACT and AP have you pay quite a bit and don’t even show you what you did wrong, blocking out the possibility of even trying to learn from your mistakes. It is believed to be a clever tactic used to gain more profit, students keep coming back to prove they are worth more with those silly numbers. They stress day and night over these overrated tests, like previously stated channeling out the imagination, curiosity and good will.
A student may not be able to read the test or understand the questions, but they will be expected to perform at the same level as a student who can. The pressure students feel will definitely affect their test scores. My sister is a first grade teacher in an inner city school; she recalls many of her colleagues expressing concern regarding their non proficient English students and their ability to successfully take standardized exams. Many of the students would become so frustrated they would begin to cry and eventually give up. I do not think it is right that students are exposed to this type of pressure and stress.
Kids are no longer pushed to excel in schools. The school system tries to convince children that they are all doing well when it is not true. When schools allow students to retake all their tests for better grades, students will not strive for perfection on their first attempt. If they do not have letter grades or finals, it is difficult to evaluate student success. These policies will keep children’s feelings from being hurt, but if Eunice cannot do poorly, she has no motivation to do better.
There are some major problems with using them. Students with high I.Q’s are expected to do better than the rest of their class, and on the flip side students with low I.Q.’s are expected to do worse. That is not always fair because students with low I.Q.’s might not get the attention needed simply because their teachers do not expect much from them. In the end there is no fairness to some. This leads to an ethical question of, is giving an intelligence test ethical?
There aren’t any objective criteria to rank students according to their efforts. Thus, it will make teachers exhausted and annoyed. For example, imagine a teacher who marks her students according to their diligence. She may have to compare students’ work with their last work to notice how they have developed. However, how could she measure the effort?
Today’s students cheat for a variety of reasons. As students get older the pressure to get good grades and the pressure from friend’s increases leading them to cheat. Then some think that cheating is not a big deal or that it is not wrong. Schools and teachers should work together with students to help them feel more secure and to show them that cheating is not acceptable and that they will only be hurting themselves in the long run. Younger children believe that cheating is wrong but that it is acceptable in some instances.