One of nation’s largest school districts ditches high school final exams. [View all]

[elleng]

Maryland’s largest school system will scrap high school final exams next school year, ending a longtime practice that lost support amid a growing national concern about too much student testing.

Montgomery County’s Board of Education voted unanimously Tuesday to eliminate the two-hour semester-end exams and replace them with shorter marking-period assessments that could take different forms: essays, tests, portfolios, and projects.

The new assessments will replace finals starting in the 2016-2017 school year and would be centrally developed, so that data can be compared across the school system.

The board’s action came as part of a measure that leaves this school year’s high school final exams intact for the first semester. For this year’s second semester, there will be no two-hour finals in courses linked to state tests such as the Maryland High School Assessments or the Common Core-aligned PARCC exams. But finals will go on in other high school-level courses for the last time.

The action marks a major change in the 156,000-student district, where high school final exams and related review time consumed at least a week each semester and sometimes as long as two weeks.

District officials will be changing grading policies as a result of eliminating the high school exams. Under the district’s present system, final exams count for 25 percent of a semester course grade.

The school system plans to release four possible options for changing grading policies Tuesday as officials seek public input.

In Montgomery, high school students have failed their math final exams at rates higher than 50 or 60 percent in some courses. The poor results, which first came to wide public attention in 2013, have left district officials scrambling for solutions. But high failure rates have persisted.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/one-of-nations-largest-school-districts-ditches-high-school-final-exams/2015/09/08/49cf5810-561e-11e5-b8c9-944725fcd3b9_story.html