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High School Exit Exams: Necessary or Cumbersome?
posted by: Tim | April 28, 2014, 02:40 PM   

 


Business leaders and advocates of students with disabilities have recently contested this exam, arguing that they are an unnecessary road block for student to receive diplomas and provide no useful information to future employers.

In lieu of this test, the state will now mandate that 11th graders take two standardized tests - ACT WorkKeys, which awards job-skill credentials students can take to employers, and a college readiness test, that is yet to be determined.

South Carolina isn’t the only state rethinking these laws. In Alaska, House Bill 220, a bill retroactively enabling students who failed to pass the state’s exit exam to receive a diploma, recently just passed by a vote of 32 to 5.

“We don’t believe that’s the best assessment of a kid’s knowledge of what they know,” said an Alaska school principal. “Really any testing is there just as a measure to see what they know and then you build on it and so we don’t agree that high stakes testing is the best measure of what a kids knowledge is and whether or not they deserve a diploma. I think it’s a much more complicated than a one shot test.”

While many states still have exit exams, a growing number are abolishing these tests in favor of more useful and specific tests.

Do you think schools should have a mandatory exit exam?
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