Jackie Gouris
Arts & Entertainment Editor
As of the 2015-2016 school year, a drastic change has taken place that will affect all students. The addition of quarterly tests will revamp cumulative tests, like midterms and finals. The idea behind quarterlies is to de-emphasize the anxiety around the weight of midterms and finals by splitting up the material and points, says the Dean of Students, Mr. Cook.
He is the man behind this initiative, believing that by having more frequent, smaller summative tests will take some stress out of the process. Still, Mr. Cook thinks that students today are over tested. “There is no magic bullet. People want to know how the students are doing, and this is the best way to do it right now,” Mr. Cook says. President Obama’s administration is saying that today’s students are being over tested, and calling for a reduction in testing.
This year’s graduates, the class of 2016, are the first class to have gone through 1-12 under the No Child Left Behind Act. After twelve years under these regulations, there is now an opposing push to de-emphasize testing. These two new initiatives are contradictory and confusing for students being pulled in all different directions. Instead of looking at arbitrary data that may not be applicable or legislation from people who are far removed from the school system, perhaps educators should look to the people who matter in this situation for answers: the students. Hopefully, all of these changes will be for the better, but in the meantime, students will continue to do what they do best: test.
