Many universities require Qualifying Exams for admission to Candidacy for
the PhD.
Unlike High School Exit Exams, these exams test the student's retention,
understanding and ability to apply recently-learned concepts in the
student's own relatively narrow specialty.
High School Exit Exams, on the other hand, really test everything the
student is supposed to have learned since Kindergarten. Often, they are
machine-scored multiple-choice exams, that are cheaper to design, grade and
administer. These exams are then restricted to testing the student on
those aspects of learning that lend themselves to multiple-choice machine
scoring, i.e., what's usually called "rote learning."
While I agree with Dusty Griggs that entrance exams are preferable to exit
exams, machine-scored entrance exams are subject to the same restrictions.
It appears possible (though unlikely, because of the cost) to design, grade
and administer more-sophisticated exams that would test the "student's
retention, understanding and ability to apply concepts". These tests
would also require training for the teachers or other staff administering
and grading the exams. (*Anyone* can hand out test booklets, Scantrons and
#2 pencils.)
IMO, state-mandated high-school exit exams have two other dangerous
aspects, beyond the items accurately described in the student essay:
1. They allow the legislature and governor a cheap and easy way to appear
to be doing something about education, when they're not. We can pass
"get-tough" laws to withhold diplomas from students who don't pass an exam,
without ever going into a classroom, or examining what students are
actually learning, or spending the financial and political capital to make
the necessary changes in school organization, teacher training and staff
development, or curriculum to improve education for all students.
2. They reinforce view that high educational standards require a high
failure rate, that in Dr. Lindsey's words, "to be meaningful [or valuable],
the standard will have to be set so that some people don't meet it."
--that if *everyone* gets a good education, it can't be very good.
This seems a particularly American fixation, common among educators as well
as the general public. (Perhaps it's due to the Calvinist influence on the
early years of our country.)
My 2 X 10^ -2 $.
Larry Gurley
At 02:45 PM 06/17/1999 -0400, Sandra CHANDLER wrote:
>I had to take and pass a test that covered all the courses I had completed
before I received my Master of Science in mathematics with a concentration
in statistics. It was a take home that, I think, I had a week to complete.
Most of the problems were real world applications with a little theory
thrown in for good measure. It drove me nuts (I don't like tests), but at
least I got to use the books when there was something that I couldn't quite
remember. Of course, if I hadn't learned the information to begin with, I
never would have been able to complete the test on time.
> [snip]
At 01:32 AM 06/17/1999 EDT, DustyGrigg@AOL.COM wrote:
[snip]
>I personally feel that instead of an "exit exams" from a particular
>instutition ... it's more logical to have "entrance exams" that one must
>pass in order to be accepted into a different learning environment. That
>learning environment might me middle school from elementary school; high
>school from middle school; college from high school; Master's Degree program
>from a B.A. Degree Program; etc.
>
>Entrance exams screen possible applicants to see whether or not they have
>acquired certain agreed upon knowledge and skills ... which have been
>determined to be necessary to succeed at the next level. Even "open
>enrollment colleges" have math and English assessment exams that determine
>the highest math and English course level in which a person can initial
>enroll.
[snip]
At 03:12 PM 06/16/1999 -0400, Lindsey, Dr. Charles wrote:
[snip]
>In short, before launching into critiques of assessment measures, one has to
>consider what the resulting certification is supposed to represent, and
>whether it is to be meaningful or valuable. Almost by definition, it cannot
>be meaningful or valuable if *everybody* has it. It follows that, to be
>meaningful, the standard will have to be set so that some people don't meet
>it.
[snip]
=======================================================
Lawrence T. Gurley, Professor, Mathematics and Computer Information Systems
(currently on sabbatical)
Merritt College, Oakland, CA 94619
lgurley@merritt.edu
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