Quote Originally Posted by Counts View Post
I don't know about doing away with them.....While I do not like the "teaching to the tests" thing that tends to go on IMHO the teachers(schools) need some sort of benchmark to measure there preformance.


IMHO schools need some sort of metric to hold them accountable
Suprbeast already said it best, hit the nail on the head.


It seems like a good idea and maybe something like that would be useful, but it's all screwed up. The teachers have to focus on the SOL's, which they aren't really given that much to study by, towards the end they got some actual samples from it...before, it was the packets called "Flanagan" which are pretty much useless. The never covered what would be on the SOL, so it served no purpose, plus those things had errors that students were pointing out left and right.

The second part is, the students just don't care about anything they are taught unless it's on the SOL. Most lessons, after every lecture, the teacher was asked by someone if this would be on the SOL...if they said "probably", it was written down and studied..if not, they just didn't care. The teachers can't teach what they need/want to be taught, it's all focused on what will be on the big test. And again, the students don't care unless it's going to be on it too. Final exams are what has always or what should be the benchmark, an SOL really isn't needed and the teacher can cover what they want the students to learn. Problem is, a lot of classes have both final exam and SOL, a lot to cover because they're nowheres near the same..and fail either, you fail the class. That's a whole lot of pressure for anyone.