The first day of school was met with many new faces and many new changes. Between half of the students now participating in STAAR testing to the many new educators, these differences could be found everywhere. But perhaps the most shocking of these adaptations was the newly formed Attendance Incentive Program. This new program does away with mandatory semester tests and, to keep kids in school through the semester, offers an extended lunch after every three week period for students with perfect attendance. This longer meal time will be an hour and 45 minutes. This new program is the perfect solution to the semester test craze and panic.
The Attendance Incentive Program offers peace of mind to students who have spent countless hours the night before studying their tails off in order to pass the 200 question test the next morning. So many hours were spent worrying about the questions, that it’s timed, the subject matter, and the length. Semester tests made students lose the perspective of what they really learned and instead filled their heads with what everyone else thought they should know. With this new program intact the students can finally breathe the last week of the semester and be excited about the upcoming vacation.
A high school student’s life is downright stressful. The semester tests just added even more stress, especially to high achieving students. Most students spend the three-six weeks in each semester trying their best to stay on top of their grades, but just one session of testing can ruin all of their hard work. It wasn’t fair, especially for those with test anxiety. Semester tests just added a burden, not just to the students but to the educators as well. First the teachers have to create the test and then they have to grade it. Sure they have an electronic grading system but since everyone has the option of using the Scan-Tron machine the line is long and slow-moving. That and the students only have to take that test once, should they pass, but teachers have to sit through five to six testing sessions, and then they can grade.
Semester tests were meant to test students on what they learned and how well the teachers were teaching the subject matter, but testing students after every unit would be so much more proficient. For starters, teachers don’t have to spend time sorting through all their educational material trying to create a test that sums up all the teaching they’ve done in a semester, and students don’t have to worry about trying to keep all the different units from muddling together. Also, since the teachers go through material at a different paces the Scan-Tron machine wouldn’t be as congested; a win for all sides.
Overall semester testing was a great notion but not as good played out as in thought. People will argue with the Attendance Inventive Program because they think it will allow students to just forget what they learned as soon as they take the unit test. But that’s the same problem that was happening during semester testing. Students could take the exam and then forget the material before the next semester or new school year. That problem is going to exist no matter what, so why not give the students a little bit of a break from their normal stress? The Attendance Incentive Program is a grand prospect to the students who had such a bleak outlook as the last week of semester rolled around. This program will give teachers more teaching time, students less stress and in general let the school population focus less on stress and more on making their high school years a success.
