High School Exit Examinations Essay

In secernate to evaluate the trailingal ability of teachchilds Standardized Tests or questions, produce been designed, which do so in an simple manner, irrespective of social background and educational experience. One such streak is the multiple-choice examination, wherein the learners cave in to make believe a selection from a number of answers for a particular question and indicate their choice on a test form. Such tests be frequently given to students who study in elementary and utility(prenominal) checks (Standardized Tests, 2006).These examinations benefitted students to a large extent, because they had to take just one set of examinations, in ordination to apply for doorway to different schools. The College Board initiated the Scholastic Aptitude Test or the SAT in 1926. The SAT is a multiple choice test that was based on the psychological tests given to US Army recruits. The SAT, by the year 1940, was being widely employed by educational institutions in the US (Standardized Tests, 2006). Standardized tests be taken by elementary school and elevated school, and under receives and graduates.The majority of these tests are controlled by the Educational examen Service or ETS and the American College Testing or ACT Program. The results of these tests help educational institutions to assess bookworm performance and to ascertain the suitability of a student for a particular undergraduate or graduate degree program (Standardized Tests, 2006). The Center on Education Policy or the CEP had made it mandatory for 50 two percent of the students studying in the public schools to take the gamey school school red examinations.However, the execution of this policy became difficult as the CEP had realized that opposition from the public towards this dogmatic steep school fade examination had been on the increase. It was also decided that students who failed to nurse a sneak away firebrand in this examination would not be awarded the high sc hool parchment. This decision to withhold high school diplomas to students who failed in the exit examination was greeted with a corking deal of resistance (Darling-Hammond, Rustique-Forrester, & Pecheone, 2005). The implementation of the exit examinations also caused a in small stages reduction in the number of graduate students.This was evident in the Afro American and Latino students, English dustup learners and students with disabilities. This reform would result in reduced incentives for students who had been striving to remain in school, a reduction in the curriculum and a disregard for higher order performance skills, because of the utilization of limited measures and irrelevant judgments regarding student learning (Darling-Hammond, Rustique-Forrester, & Pecheone, 2005). The use of exit examinations varies from order to state. Some states waste already apply them, whereas other states have not implemented them.A majority of states have put forward several options and alternatives. So utmost only eight states have implemented the mandatory exit examination as a compulsory requirement, in which the student has to obtain a pass mark, in order to obtain a high school diploma. Further, this system does not take cognizance of the excellence of performance of the students and their academic record and is only if guided by whether the students have obtained a pass mark in the exit examination or not (Darling-Hammond, Rustique-Forrester, & Pecheone, 2005).Most of the states have implemented multiple measures of performance in order to evaluate the students capability of learning. The student requires a pass mark in the state examination, which is used as an indicator for the students ability to obtain a state diploma. Moreover, the student is also needed to obtain a pass mark in other alternatives that test the student by employ a wide range of methods so as to establish their academic learning.In these states, there is not just a single test to disq ualify students from graduation but there exist an rate of indicators to determine the knowledge of the students (Darling-Hammond, Rustique-Forrester, & Pecheone, 2005). In an important report relating to the implementation of the high school exit test in the state of Mississippi, sixty five recommendations had been proposed. Some of these are, it would be issue forthly inappropriate to require students to obtain a pass mark in an examination that contained material that had not been taught to the students.Further, the exit examination should be based on a multiple choice system, which would test thinking skills. Moreover, the exit examination would be undesirable for the students of the state of Mississippi. In addition, the national level exit examination would require a total restructuring of the curriculum of the district schools, which would create serious difficulties. Furthermore, measures that evaluate the students skills and performance should be segmented.Moreover, grea t care would have to be taken while implementing tests that evaluate the performance and skills of students (ED384990 Issues To Consider in mournful beyond a Minimal expertness High School Graduation Test, 1995). The states of Arizona, California and Utah introduced high school exit examinations, in which high school students from the year 2006 have to obtain a pass mark, in order to be awarded a high school diploma. In most of the states of the Union that perform such high school exit examinations, students are required to take it in the sophomore year.The level of these tests is of the tenth grade and students who are unable to obtain a pass mark are provided with a number of opportunities to again take this test. Sixteen of the twenty three states that have made these tests compulsory have directed the schools to provide remediation to students who fail to obtain a pass mark. Furthermore, in states that are introducing these examinations, monetary help for such remediation h as in most of the cases been provided by it (David, 21st June, 2006).In the state of radical York students have taken these high school exit tests with a very high degree of victory and have obtained a large number of diplomas. However, this has not proved to be applicable to students belonging to the minority communities. The Education Commissioner disclosed that eighty one percent of white students obtained their diplomas in due course, whereas the students of minority communities fix the obtention of pass marks in English, mathematics, global history, geography, US history and science to be a daunting task.Consequently, only forty two percent of the Hispanic students, forty five percent of African American and sixty eight percent of Asian students obtained their diplomas within the stipulated season (Hoff, 23rd of March, 2005). A prospect conducted by the National Center on Educational Outcomes has revealed the fact that fifty percent of the states of the Union have made it mandatory to obtain a pass mark in the exit test, in order to be eligible to obtain a high school diploma.However, very few states have implemented an alternative procedure for evaluating disabled students, which is of an equivalent standard in comparison to the test applied to prescribed students. This report goes on to state that the absence of tests for the disabled and regular students that are of equivalent rigor, gives rise to the slump that disabled students are not competent to undertake grade level work (Samuels, 4th of May, 2005). In the state of California, the Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger passed a law that exempts disabled students from taking and obtaining a pass mark in the high school exit test.This new law states that if a student had been permitted to fol suffering an individual education plan and if such a student had satisfied all other criteria for being awarded with a high school diploma and further if that student had received remediation for the exit test , then that student would be allowed to graduate, irrespective of having obtained a pass mark in the exit test. The objective of this law was to enable the state of California to provide better instructions for disabled students (Jacobson, 8th of Februray, 2006).In the state of Utah, even if students who do not obtain a pass mark in every portion of the high school exit test, they are awarded the high school diploma. However, such diplomas contain a statement that the student had not obtained a pass mark in the high school exit test. Several states of the Union are having second thoughts about continuing with such high school exit tests and at the same time a several students have proved to be unsuccessful in obtaining a pass mark in their graduation examinations.The law in the state of Utah has made it mandatory for high school students to obtain a pass mark in mathematics, reading and that part of the Utah Basic Skills Competency Test that comprises of tests on writing skills, in order to be awarded with a high school diploma (Olson, 25th January, 2006). In another study it was established that states of the Union, in which high school exit tests are in vogue, have a graduation rate and college entrance examination marks that are importantly lower than states that do not have such tests.In particular, students from states of the Union, that had made it mandatory to obtain a pass mark in the high school exit examination, fared worse than students from states of the Union that did not verify on such a condition, in the internationally acknowledged Scholastic Aptitude Test. Moreover, such students had a significantly lower rate of graduation (Viadero, 2nd of February, 2005). It has been opined by many people that high school exit examinations result in an increase in the number of students who discontinue their studies, before obtaining a high school diploma.The detractors of such exit examinations have very pertinently pointed out the fact that the already lo w graduation rates are being forced down to a much lower level. numerous critics have stated that it would be patently unfair to deny a student who had completed xiii years of schooling a high school diploma, merely because that student could not obtain a pass mark in the high school examination. Moreover, many persons consider such a demur of a high school diploma to be ruthlessly unjust, because such a diploma is requirement for ensuring a bright future.