Posted on 05/30/2002 10:03:13 AM PDT by BlessedBeGod
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - You can get three-quarters of the answers wrong and still pass this test.
Palm Beach County high school students taking a new history exam this week need to answer just 23 of 100 multiple-choice questions correctly to pass.
To get an A, they need to get just over half the answers right. A B grade requires only 39 correct answers.
The new final exam for American and world history classes was developed by school district officials to ensure students learn state- required lessons that include history about women, Africans, African-Americans and the Holocaust.
The 100-question test, specific to Palm Beach County, replaces individual final exams that teachers create themselves. The district, which recommended the grading scale, sent letters to schools giving them the option to use it on the new test.
Many said they will, while teachers in some schools said the issue hasn't yet been discussed. It will be for this year only.
But some teachers were concerned about the low passing scale.
"I don't think if you administer a valid test and a kid misses half of the questions, that they should pass," said Thomas O'Brien, a social studies teacher at Lake Worth High School.
School board member Debra Robinson, who introduced the idea of using a standardized history exam last fall, said she accepts the grading scale this year, because it's the first time the district is using the exam.
Final exams are worth 20 percent of a student's grade.
I suppose they could have just redrawn the "curve" or given the students "points" just for writing their names like they did with the SATs and avoided the public knowing about the lack of knowledge possed by today's students......
I've got a question for all of you homeschoolers. How much does it cost per year to homeschool your kids typically? Does anybody have any website links about homeschooling that they could send me? I'm thinking about it, but I have three kids and wondering if it is feasible. FReepmail me.
When mini-mega-death is considered, no one dare recognize the core meaninglessness of individual lives in modern times and the insignificance of the loss in the bigger picture.
I'm contending there is a far greater evil than such losses, that is: the loss of human potential, destiny, dignity, and morality on the scale of civilizations. The erosion and deformation of human spirit as a whole is the most sinister evil we face.
As long as the individual has no higher concern than himself humanity will continue on this abominable path. We stand in awe of the perverse and sanctify iconoclastic cultural poisons.
In newspeak, pressure to be good equates to oppression and defiance is held up as heroism.
Exactly! This could be a tough test!
And you have to get over 50% for an 'A' grade.
Sounds to me like gubmint skoolin' is right on track....
Kids illiterate?...Check!
Kids innumerate?...Check!
Kids ignorant of history?...Check!
NEA monopoly intact?...Check!
Skool administrator's salaries paid?...Check!
Woo-Hoo!! Five for five!! Is this a great country or what?!?!
Of course, history doesn't really matter. The PC left rewrites it all the time...
Many of our kids are going to have to leave school and WORK for a living and these nitwits who supposedly teach them AREN'T doing the same! I'd be ashamed to show my face in public if I got only half the questions on a history test right, yet THESE GOOFS would give me an "A" for that...Humiliating!
I am wondering if one of the questions on the exam was "in the 2000 presidential election, who was elected president ? -Answer: Al Gore".
Just goes to show how the lack of leadership and the "justify-anything-and-do-nothing-to-identify-the-truth-even-when-it-stares-you-right-in-the-face" mentality of the Klintoon years has permeated our educational system.
One Word: HOMESCHOOL
Is that one word or two? Pardon me, after all, I was edjumakated in Pam Bech Konty.
If you find such a place be sure to freepmail me. ;~)
a.cricket
'Specially since Burger King gets all of the Sharp Ones!
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