Grades and the way students are assessed has been a controversial issue from kindergarten to higher
education.
According to a report by WBRZ, the East Baton Rouge Parish School System Central office recently endorsed a new policy, which grants students at certain schools, including – Tara High School and Belaire High School – the right to retake tests and assignments, regardless of their grade.
Can you imagine if the administration decided to incorporate this kind of policy at LSU? It would take massive amounts of red tape, and a second exam week wouldn’t sit well with some professors.
As it stands now, demanding my professor provide me the right to retake an exam wouldn’t go so well. Retaking assignments and tests is a privilege, not a right.
Reassessments should be up to teachers, taken on a case-by-case basis. The new policy puts more
pressure on teachers and further takes away their autonomy.
Teachers shouldn’t have to set aside their valuable time to re-administer tests to any student who requests it, regardless of
circumstances.
Some students found the policy unfair to students who already apply themselves, and I agree.
Several students voiced their support of the policy and said they were happy with the ability to retake an assignment or test, “especially if they were busy with other things the first time or just had a bad day,” according to a report by The Advocate.
I’m sure they are happy with their right to redo assignments. Now they can put off studying to go out with friends the night before a test. When they do poorly on the test, they can exercise their “right to a fair grade,” according to the policy, and request to retake the exam at a time that better fits their schedules.
Schools should encourage mature, professional behavior, responsibility and work ethic, but this policy does the opposite. It gives students an unrealistic view of how the real world operates.
EBR Associate Superintendent Orlando Ramos disagreed,
comparing the new policy to professional exams: “In the real world if you failed the bar exam, you can re-take it.”
Yes, people can retake a certification exam, or other professional exams, just as high school students can retake the SAT and the ACT.
But these are the exceptions. In the real world, people rarely get do-overs, and they certainly don’t have the right to them.
Demand your right to redo a job interview or a professional assignment or assessment at your workplace, and let me know how that goes.
“When teachers have observations, they can’t just say, ‘I want to redo that,’” said Danielle Berner, an English teacher at Dutchtown High School. “That’s because what we are doing impacts people’s lives every moment of every day. You can’t redo that impact.”
In support of the new policy, Ramos said grades often do not line up with what students know.
If this is the case, perhaps officials should focus on making assessments more holistic and fair in the first place, instead of just telling students they have the right to
redo assignments.
John Griffitt, a teacher and chairman at Tara High School, said the students’ rights policy arose from a Tara think tank that looks at ways to improve the school and lower the number of F grades teachers were giving.
The new policy may lower the number of F grades, but just because a student gets a better grade the second take, doesn’t mean they have mastered the material. He or she may have just figured out the test, and while our school system rewards that, it is not true education.
The new policy is a superficial political fix that ignores the real problems, like why these students are failing in the first place.
If the number of F grades decreases, the policy will likely improve the prestige of the schools, but will it actually improve the learning conditions at the schools? I
think not.
Christine Guttery is a 20-year-old English junior from Baton Rouge.