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The pending high-stakes graduation test has students “scared stiff” that they won’t be able to graduate, according to a student at West Bend East High School.
While the test may be designed to motivate students to learn, it may well have the opposite effect, prompting students to give up on their education, student J. Jason Holder said in a letter to Governor Thompson.
“Many of these students who are currently in middle school feel that there is no point in even trying because they believe they won’t pass the test,” Holder wrote. “So they shut down and close their minds to new horizons.”
Holder said students already are suffering from “mental overload.”
“Unfortunately, new curriculum requirements have increased the amount of material required to be taught by teachers to such a high level that we are being taught but never learning the material,” he wrote.
“Teachers don’t have time to slow down and explain things well enough, and things go in one ear and out the other.
“Shouldn’t quality be stressed over quantity? If you expect your students to be the best, then don’t overload and push to a point of breakdown. Please, let us learn.”
Holder, a member of the East High School Village Partnership Team, recalled a meeting at which teachers struggled over changing their math curriculum to focus more on the exit exam.
“The frustration these teachers felt was alarming,” wrote Holder, whose parents are both teachers. “They were trying to do their jobs to the best of their ability and still felt at a loss of what to do. Not only is this unfair stress to put upon teachers, but should students really be forced to learn in this style?
“Students should not have to learn math a new way just to pass one single test.”
Posted April 5, 1999
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