Friday, January 23, 2009
End-of-course exams in Missouri
Missouri is implementing end-of-course exams for high schools. Algebra I, Biology, and English II are in place, with seven others under development. The state strongly encourages schools to use the exam results as 10-25% of the student's course grade. Read more here. (Hat Tip: PEN Newsblast)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
In Jefferson County, the grading scale is 93-100 is an A. On that scale, a student who does not pass the end of course exam worth 25% would have the highest score of a D for the class. For students who are stuck with teachers who have not mastered the content well enough to teach what is on the end of course exam, this is fatal. For students who have parents who can teach them the content at home so they can pass despite having a subpar teacher, the teacher faces no consequences because the class scores are not reflective of the teacher's subpar ability, they are reflective of the parents' ability. I am for end of course exams, but we need to build in checks/balances for students, who have no adult education advocate, who will be falsely held accountable for situations outside of their control. Maybe the end of course exam can only be worth one normal test, and the parents will provide feedback for how much time they spent teaching the content at home to their child.
ReplyDeleteWhat math are you using to state that failing an EOC worth 25% would give the student a "D"? What is the scale for a "C" grade?
DeleteOf course, I am assuming by failing, you mean getting a 0% on the EOC. Anyone getting a 0% on the EOC doesn't deserve anything better, really.
I'm a Biology teacher in Jefferson County, Missouri (Northwest R1). Our EOC's are worth 10% of the student's grade and we have spent the last two years (including the preparation for field testing in 2008) preparing ourselves as teachers to bring our teaching in line with the EOC's.
ReplyDeleteThree years ago Missouri published Course Level Expectations to replace the more general Grade Level Expectations. We realigned our curriculum to match these new CLE's with the understanding that the coming EOC's would be built from these new CLE's.
It's been alot of work. In my opinion, EOC's are easier to prepare our students for than the old MAP tests because EOC's are course specific and relevant in both time and content.
I'm interested to see how my students perform this year as our testing cycle begins Monday, April 20th. What I've seen of the test looks challenging since we teach Biology to freshmen, but I do believe that the long term outlook will be to bring the level of our Biology classes to a higher standard.
As to subpar teachers facing no consequences - I haven't seen that in either of the two school districts I've worked in recently. Lots of pressure on us to get our students' performance up - it's a prime feature in our MSIP (Missouri School Improvement Plan) program so everyone is concerned about making it happen here. The only way that I can make that happen is to fully prepare my students for the test.
In fact, right now I'm reviewing the results of a practice EOC that we worked on in class Friday after spending two days reviewing material that the EOC might cover.
Questions about the validity of standardized testing are legitimate but, as a teacher, I appreciate knowing what is expected of me and having some kind of benchmark to show whether I'm reaching those expectations or not.
I'm a Biology teacher in Jefferson County, Missouri (Northwest R1). Our EOC's are worth 10% of the student's grade and we have spent the last two years (including the preparation for field testing in 2008) preparing ourselves as teachers to bring our teaching in line with the EOC's.
ReplyDeleteThree years ago Missouri published Course Level Expectations to replace the more general Grade Level Expectations. We realigned our curriculum to match these new CLE's with the understanding that the coming EOC's would be built from these new CLE's.
It's been alot of work. In my opinion, EOC's are easier to prepare our students for than the old MAP tests because EOC's are course specific and relevant in both time and content.
I'm interested to see how my students perform this year as our testing cycle begins Monday, April 20th. What I've seen of the test looks challenging since we teach Biology to freshmen, but I do believe that the long term outlook will be to bring the level of our Biology classes to a higher standard.
As to subpar teachers facing no consequences - I haven't seen that in either of the two school districts I've worked in recently. Lots of pressure on us to get our students' performance up - it's a prime feature in our MSIP (Missouri School Improvement Plan) program so everyone is concerned about making it happen here. The only way that I can make that happen is to fully prepare my students for the test.
In fact, right now I'm reviewing the results of a practice EOC that we worked on in class Friday after spending two days reviewing material that the EOC might cover.
Questions about the validity of standardized testing are legitimate but, as a teacher, I appreciate knowing what is expected of me and having some kind of benchmark to show whether I'm reaching those expectations or not.