Extras from week 14

More reflections on summative assessments and in particular end-of-course exams in South Carolina for our discussion board this week...

I have two high-schoolers and I asked them if they felt EOCs were an accurate representation of what they had learned or were expected to learn throughout the semester.  This is what they said.

• The questions are unbalanced - not evenly distributed (i.e. 20% of the test comes from a single chapter.)
• The curriculum is too broad and their teachers do not have time to cover everything.
• There is unfamiliar content on the test (possibly because of the reasons above.)
• They test too early.
• Why do they have to take a final exam for the class when they took an EOC two or three weeks before?

Based on their responses, I would say that the EOC system does not work well; however, as a parent my view is that it is a necessary component.  Teachers should be evaluated.  Students should be evaluated.  I'm afraid that even as an educator, I do have not viable solution or replacement for summative evaluations.