Should students have to pass an exam to graduate from high school?

Picture yourself having the perfect senior year in high school. You work hard and earn great grades. You rock the SAT. You sail through midterms and ace finals. Now all you have to do is be measured for your cap and gown,right?

Maybe not.

In some states, students have to pass an exit exam before they can graduate. Although the exams vary from state to state,they test students for basic proficiency in math, English, and writing. If students fail the exam,they dont graduate-regardless of their grades.

Educators say the use of exit exams is a growing trend. Nationwide,23 states administer graduation exams,and four more are phasing them in by 2012,according to the Center on Education Policy,based in Washington, D.C. This spring, for the first time,school officials in Arizona,California, Idaho, and Utah plan to withhold diplomas from students who fail exams.

The tests have spurred many protests. Some students say that the tests are unfair. Proponents say exit exams are an important tool to ensure that students meet basic requirements.

Testing isnt teaching考試不是教學(xué)

Whether students receive their high school diplomas shouldnt be determined by their performance on one test,say critics of the practice. In an editorial in The Sacramento Bee,former teacher Don Arnstine called the testing an “academic straitjacket.”

“The insistence that everyone learn this content means that students will never have the opportunity to learn anything else—including what interests them,”he wrote.

Other critics argue that exit exams might cause students who are already struggling academically to drop out of high school or get a general equivalency diploma (GED) instead. Some people are concerned that the exams disproportionately hurt students for whom English is a second language,as well as kids who come from schools that already have low graduation rates.

Iris Padilla moved to California from Mexico two years ago. A senior at Richmond High School,she earned enough credits to graduate but failed the exit exam. She recently protested the use of exit exams, calling them unfair. “As students of color and immigrant students,”she said,“we are the ones who attend schools with the least resources.”

The real world現(xiàn)實(shí)世界

Exam advocates say the tests are meant to help students,not punish them. “The tests arent a judgment but an indicator of level of skill,”says Paul Reveille,a professor at the Harvard School of Education. “The real punishment would be to send a kid to work or college without the required skills and knowledge to be successful there.”

Kati Haycock,director of the nonprofit group Education Trust,contends that the tests are necessary in a world where students are often unprepared for college or first jobs. “Your entire future does depend on having reading,writing,and math skills,”Haycock told Teen Newsweek. “In this economy,not having those skills is essentially an economic death sentence.”

In California,the West Contra Costa school board decided against giving diplomas to students who failed exit exams,despite student protests. “We are not a diploma mill,”says board member Karen Pfeifer. “You earn them.”