Beginning this academic year, the district will discontinue midterm and final exams after negative teacher and student feedback on the quality and amount of testing. The district notified parents via E-mail the week before the first day of school.
Each of the four marking periods will now count for 25 percent of the year-end course grade. Previously each marking period was worth 20 percent of the final grade, and the midterm and final exam were each weighted 10 percent.
The district will instead focus on further implementing common assessments at the middle and high school levels. These assessments are embedded in curricular units, according to Martin Smith, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. Teachers with the same subject course will administer the same common assessments at defined points in the marking period, and then grade the exams in a common way, Smith says. Throughout the school year teachers will also administer individual tests as well. Scores on those exams will be part of marking period grades.
The administration and Board of Education Curriculum Committee concluded that the previous midterm and finals structure was not serving the district’s learning goals.
“We received feedback from students and teachers and there were concerns on the amount of testing and quality of exams,” Smith says.
The district’s E-mail announcement cited high school teachers’ comments on multi-part exams, which affected the number of assessments for marking period grades, and that administering such exams blocked out much of June. Also, the administration and curriculum committee noted the exams did not impact final grades for many students.
Jordon DeGroote, a senior at South and a school board candidate challenging board vice president Michele Kaish this fall, agreed with some aspects of the district’s reasoning to eliminate midterms and finals but questioned others.
“It was a little shocking. There wasn’t any precursor, no warning, no survey. It was a little surprising when my mom got the E-mail. It seems like it was a decision that was in the planning at least a year back,” DeGroote said. “Finals didn’t provide the most stress for students. We always had the time to prepare. The issue was with mid-terms.”
DeGroote recalls the district changing midterms at South two years ago. Core subject exams previously centered around multiple choice tests became a multi-part common assessment format. For example, the multi-part exam might include a group project and two quizzes.
However, the change in format distorted the second marking period, which the district notification E-mail mentioned as an issue. DeGroote took pre-calculus honors last year, and two exams from the second marking period curriculum were reassigned to become part of the course’s multi-part midterm. This reallocation reduced the number of marking period assessments from five to three, increasing the stakes of the three remaining assessments in the marking period, which is weighted 20 percent of the final grade, or double the weight of the midterm. This raised student stress.
While DeGroote agrees the multi-part exams made it difficult to have an adequate number of marking period exams, he says the most stressful testing issue for students is multiple tests scheduled for the same day. He says the best way to reduce stress is a policy that allows students to take a test before or after the scheduled date if there is another test conflict.
“My biology teacher freshman year had this approach,” DeGroote says. “So this policy is undertaken by some teachers, and it’s something that helps students.”
Moreover, DeGroote questions how removing midterms and finals will affect the college preparedness of high school graduates.
“When students go to college, they will have finals,” DeGroote says. “This is not preparing students for college structure. The first time taking finals should not be as an undergraduate.”
When asked about college preparedness, Smith says the full course academic program, as well as AP results and SAT scores, were better indicators of preparedness than midterm and final exams. Smith also noted many universities are moving away from the finals paradigm.
