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My Dates with the Exam
"I was only two points away from passing the Math section."
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to this Commentary!
By Krystle Martin
 I’ve
had three dates with the California exit exam. The first date was a disaster.
It was the summer after my freshman year. I failed both sections – English
and Math. My mother said, “You can do so much better than this!”
It was my fault. I didn’t take the test seriously. There was no heavy
pressure. I knew I could take it as many times as it took to pass. My second
date, I was in tenth grade and I actually put in a lot of effort. My test scores
were better. I still didn’t pass the Math, but I did pass English. Third
date was the best, but not good enough. I was only two points away from passing
the Math section. Now that California is postponing the test until 2006, I don’t
have to go on any more dates with that jerk of an exit exam.
I dreaded taking it every year because there were things on the test that I
had never seen before. I felt unprepared. I’m glad to hear that the state
is acknowledging that poor schools don’t do as well on these tests, and
it’s not the students’ fault.
There’s always money involved. My school system in Oakland is in major
debt. And that has a lot to do with the way the students turn out. The curriculum,
how advanced it is, and just the whole school environment, suffers in a poor
school. I’m forced to go to these schools. There’s no where else
to go. I’m just trying to hurry up and get out of high school and get
started on my life.
With the shortage of teachers, schools just take whomever they can and the teachers
they hire don’t necessarily know all the material. There were plenty of
topics on the test that I would like to know, but I’m not sure I’ll
ever learn them in my high school. My junior year Math teacher – you could
just tell the way she taught that she didn’t really know some of the stuff
herself. That’s why I had to go to tutoring. And in the past few years,
nothing has really changed. I don’t know what’s going on with America,
but the government puts schools last.
Now that the test won’t count for me, I’m left feeling like I stressed
like crazy about something that doesn’t really matter after all. Yet another
misleading message from a teacher to a teenager. Don’t get me wrong. I’m
glad they pushed back the exam. But that doesn’t solve the problem of
kids not graduating because their curriculum isn’t where it should be.
Moving the test just POSTPONES the failure of all those seniors.
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