Rogers Drops Semester Exams

ROGERS -- Formal end-of-semester exams are a thing of the past in Rogers School District after a vote at Tuesday's School Board meeting.

The tests were once weighted as 20 percent of a student's grade, said Robert Moore, assistant superintendent for secondary education after Tuesday's meeting. Administrators spent the past year studying the tests. Spring semester exams counted for 10 percent of the grade this year. This winter's were canceled due to winter weather. Administrators compared the final grades from this year's canceled tests with those who took exams the year before.

They found that some students coasted along through the semester and used the final to boost their grades. For other students the final test did no favors.

"No independent assessment of any sort should be valued so highly that it can destroy a kid's grade at one point in time," Moore said.

It would be like a record-setting athlete who had an entire career judged by one poor performance, he said.

The high school exam practice was based on board policy. The policy itself did not require end-of-semester exams, but allowed seniors to skip end-of-semester exams with good attendance, teacher approval and a grade of "C" or better. It inferred that the tests were required, Moore said.

Byron Black, a board member, asked what had changed to make the school district want to drop the tests.

Semester exams were thought to prepare students for a college experience when the policy was devised in the 1980s, Moore said. Rogers graduates tell teachers they don't take finals in college.

Teachers will get back about 10 teaching days without semester exams, Moore said after the meeting. Reviews took time. Last year exams were spread over two class periods, interrupting both schedules. Students signed out and left school after they finished, another concern for educators, he said. State law requires students to be in school at least six hours a day 178 days a year.

Taking away one big test should also mean less stress for students, he said.

Bentonville School District used end-of-semester exams this year. In April, the School Board there voiced confidence in an administrative decision to end semester exams starting this fall.

Rogers New Technology High School, a charter school within the Rogers district, has not had semester exams because the school model is built on units and projects, Moore said.

Testing isn't going away, Moore said.

Students enrolled in Advanced Placement tests already take a standardized test at the end of the class that determines if they will get college credit, Moore said. Career classes have an end-of-class exam included in the program, Moore said. High school students still take standardized tests and periodic assessments. They will still have tests in school.

Teachers should be checking daily to see what students understand whether it's a simple raise of hands or a test at the end of a unit, he said. If a teacher knows mid-unit what the students are missing they can change what they teach. Once the semester is over it's too late.

"We should be knowing how our students are doing in our classes all the time," he said.