Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
According to the Daily InterLake, Glacier and Flathead high schools want to abandon the school district’s half-baked policy that allows students with stellar attendance records to opt out of final exams.
That would be a long overdue return to sanity. The premise of the opt-out policy is that it’s more important for students to be in the classroom than finding out whether they learned anything while they were there.
One argument — rationalization, really — used to support the opt-out policy was that final exams aren’t the only way of evaluating learning. But the principals of Glacier and Flathead eviscerated that notion during their presentation to the school board earlier this week:
Both schools came to a consensus that all students, regardless of attendance, should take final tests. Fusaro said that removing the attendance incentive also may change perceptions that final exams are a punishment for missing school; instead they prepare students for college.
“I saw kids graduate with a 3.8 GPA from high school and never take a single exam, but when they get to college, what do you take — pretty much exams — and they were definitely not prepared for their first year so they definitely had to study and that’s part of the impetus looking at this,” Fusaro said.
How did students who had that hard a time in college ever receive a 3.8 GPA?
I’m old fashioned. I believe grades should reflect a student’s mastery of the subject matter, and nothing else. No points added or deducted for attendance. No grades based on socialization, on working with others, on attitude, or on anything except the subject matter. And the evaluations of a student’s mastery of the subject matter must be rigorous standardized tests that allow valid comparisons across school, district, state, and national boundaries.
It’s exasperating that allowing students with goody-two-shoes attendance records to opt out of final exams is even an issue. The policy never made sense, never should have been adopted, and should be repealed. Pronto.