High School Exit Examinations Essay

In baffle to rate the educational faculty of bookmans similar Tests or examinations, take a crap been designed, which do so in an unbiased manner, regardless of social background and educational experience. One such(prenominal) evidence is the nine-fold-choice examination, wherein the assimilators realise to make a selection from a number of answers for a particular question and indicate their choice on a test form. Such tests argon frequently assumption to educatees who study in easy and secondary cultivatehouses (Standardized Tests, 2006).These examinations benefitted scholars to a large extent, because they had to take just unmatched traffic circle of examinations, in stray to apply for admission to different schools. The College Board initiated the bookworm 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 busy by educational insti tutions in the US (Standardized Tests, 2006). Standardized tests argon taken by elementary school and noble school, and undergraduates and graduates.The absolute majority of these tests are controlled by the Educational Testing Service or ETS and the American College Testing or ACT Program. The results of these tests help educational institutions to assess scholastic performance and to bump the suitability of a scholarly person for a particular undergraduate or graduate degree program (Standardized Tests, 2006). The Center on Education insurance or the CEP had made it mandatory for fifty two percent of the students perusal in the public schools to take the risque school surpass examinations.However, the effectuation of this policy became difficult as the CEP had realized that opposition from the public towards this requisite high gear school extend examination had been on the increase. It was also determined that students who failed to bring a transcend smear in th is examination would not be awarded the high school diploma. This decision to withhold high school diplomas to students who failed in the go on examination was greeted with a great deal of tube (Darling-Hammond, Rustique-Forrester, & Pecheone, 2005). The writ of execution of the exit examinations also caused a gradual reduction in the number of graduate students.This was evident in the Afro American and Latino students, incline language learners and students with disabilities. This reform would result in reduced incentives for students who had been striving to persevere in school, a reduction in the curriculum and a rationalize 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 have already implemented them, whereas other states have not implemented them.A majority of states have put forward several options and alternatives. So far solo eight states have implemented the mandatory exit examination as a compulsory prayment, in which the student has to dominate a good-bye cicatrice, 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 usher and is solely guided by whether the students have obtained a pass cross 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 tag in the state examination, which is used as an indicator for the students ability to obtain a state diploma. Moreover, the student is also required to obtain a pass mugful in other alternatives that test the student by using a wide range of methods so as to establish their academic learnin g.In these states, there is not just a single test to disqualify students from graduation but there comprise an array of indicators to determine the knowledge of the students (Darling-Hammond, Rustique-Forrester, & Pecheone, 2005). In an important accounting relating to the implementation of the high school exit test in the state of Mississippi, 60 five recommendations had been proposed. Some of these are, it would be totally 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 unwanted 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 sk ills and performance should be segmented.Moreover, great care would have to be taken while implementing tests that evaluate the performance and skills of students (ED384990 Issues To Consider in Moving beyond a Minimal Competency High domesticate Graduation Test, 1995). The states of Arizona, calcium and doh 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 enforce such high school exit examinations, students are required to take it in the sophomore year.The level of these tests is of the 10th grade and students who are unable to obtain a pass mark are get outd with a number of opportunities to again take this test. Sixteen of the xx 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 e xaminations, financial help for such remediation has in most of the cases been provided by it (David, 21st June, 2006).In the state of New York students have taken these high school exit tests with a really high degree of mastery 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 found the obtainment of pass marks in English, mathematics, global history, geography, US history and cognition to be a daunting task.Consequently, only forty two percent of the Hispanic students, forty five percent of African American and lx eight percent of Asian students obtained their diplomas within the stipulated while (Hoff, 23rd of March, 2005). A survey conducted by the National Center on Educational Outcomes has revealed the concomitant 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 combining weight weight standard in comparison to the test applied to regular 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 impression that disabled students are not competent to secure 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 follow an individual education plan and if such a student had satisfied all other criteria for being awarded with a high school diploma and furthe r 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 go along 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 Com petency 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 arrest 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 worsened than students from states of the Union that did not insist 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 plenty 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 h ave very pertinently pointed out the fact that the already low graduation rates are being forced downward to a much lower level. Many critics have stated that it would be patently unfair to deny a student who had completed bakers dozen 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 denial of a high school diploma to be ruthlessly unjust, because such a diploma is essential for ensuring a bright future.