As seen in the Courant:
Connecticut has resisted joining the list of states requiring high school students to pass exit exams to graduate, but the State Board of Education may be warming to the idea.[.]
Many states require high school exit exams, and Gov. M. Jodi Rell has supported the idea. But Connecticut lawmakers and educators in the past have opposed efforts to require tests. This year, two bills that would have required such exams failed to make it out of the General Assembly’s appropriations committee.
Still, [Education Commissioner] McQuillan urged the state board to review the idea and come up with a modified exam proposal that could be considered by the legislature next year.
I don’t mind the idea of requiring some comprehensive testing as a prerequisite to receiving a high school diploma, even though I do have a healthy skepticism of any standardized exam. (Most standardized exams, IMO, test one’s ability to take the test, which is not necessarily the same as mastery of the material.)
However, I do have three concerns:
- In the past few years, there seems to have been a glut of standardized testing required in the schools. I would hope that any sort of “exit testing” or even “testing for promotion” scheme could be blended with other testing “requirements”, rather than just adding more testing on to what already seems to be a busy school calendar.
- Don’t standardized tests cost money to administer? In some Connecticut towns, the education budget already seems like a runaway train.
- I’m under the impression that, as a whole, Connecticut’s public schools are among the best in the country. Does the state have such a problem with “worthless” diplomas that exit testing is so desirable? If so, what does that say about other parts of the country, where schools have a less-stellar reputation?