Montgomery County moves ahead with plans to scrap high school finals.

Montgomery County education leaders are forging ahead with plans to eliminate high school final exams, even as teachers have expressed concerns that the change will affect student learning and college readiness.

Board members backed a proposal to scrap exams in September and discussed the issue again at a school board meeting last week, as they unanimously gave final approval to policy revisions that reflect the changes they endorsed.

Starting next school year, 45-minute quarterly assessments will replace two-hour semester exams, a change officials say will mean two more weeks of instructional time a year because there will no longer be special exam weeks when teaching stops.

The move comes at a time when policymakers and experts have decried the volume of student testing in the United States, with critics saying students face too many standardized exams that are of little value and take away hours that could be used for learning.

In Montgomery, Maryland’s largest school district, many high school teachers have spoken out against the board’s plan in recent weeks, saying the county’s cumulative course exams are important benchmarks and pointing out that many of the testing complaints are focused on state-required assessments.

A large number of educators object to getting rid of finals, according to a recent teacher survey. More than 90 percent of 214 staff members opposed doing away with the county’s semester-end tests in recent public comments submitted to the school system.

“I think this is a poorly thought-out solution for the excess of testing that kids are facing,” one teacher wrote.

[Many Montgomery teachers want to keep final exams]

While acknowledging the dissent, the school board moved forward. Some members noted poor results on recent state tests and said it was time for a new approach. Fewer than half of the students tested earned scores demonstrating college readiness on algebra and English 10 exams.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/montgomery-county-moves-ahead-with-plans-to-scrap-high-school-finals/2015/11/16/9f911aba-889e-11e5-be8b-1ae2e4f50f76_story.html