The class of 2023 is woefully unprepared for college, and for once it is by no fault of our own. This past month marked the third year of no midterms for Stamford High, and this June will be the fourth year of no finals. The district’s decision to indefinitely suspend midterm and final examinations in 2021 following the initial suspension due to the academic disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic has been defined by a multifaceted array of excuses. 

Initially, the moratorium was justified by the district with talks of student stress and fragility as a result of the pandemic, but associate superintendent Amy Beldotti believes “we had curriculum instruction and assessment challenges and needs before COVID ever happened.” While it would be remiss not to recognize the district’s flaws before the pandemic, this decision has been a step in the wrong direction. 

For many seniors, this year is not the end of their educational pursuits. In college or any post-secondary education, grades will be mostly if not solely determined by their performance on large-scale cumulative examinations. High School semesterly exams are a fair and accurate measure of a student’s academic knowledge and understanding of curricula without the expensive stakes of college credit. Historically, midterms and finals counted for 10% of a student’s final grade. In college, there is a good chance they account for over 70% of your grade. High School midterms ease students into the feeling of taking major tests that can set them apart academically and prepare them for other forms of testing like work certification exams, AP exams, the SATs, ACTs, MCATs, LSATs, etc. Since the beginning of the pandemic and the increase in test-optional facilities, the amount of ‘grade inflation’ occurring in schools has grown immensely. Since testing has been removed as a factor of high school GPA, the average high school GPA, according to ACT, had “increased 0.19-grade points, from 3.17 in 2010 to 3.36 in 2021” while math and English proficiency rates have stalled and even declined in some areas. 

Many consider the disparity between testing and grades a poor reflection on the practice, but this portrayal ignores the objectivity of testing as a balance to the often subjective world of grading. With tests, teachers are given a clear end goal to achieve with their classroom instruction. This methodology has been criticized as encouraging people to “teach to the test,” citing a decline in academic freedom. Academic freedom, however, is often a stand-in for the more accurate phrase of academic inconsistency. In college, students will not be able to fail a test and still get an A in the semester, exploit the kindness of teachers or the loopholes of extra credit, and instead will have to take a test, write a paper or do a presentation. 

Testing anxiety as a concern is also largely overblown and nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy. The longer we prevent kids from testing for concerns of “testing anxiety,” the more they are implanted with the idea that tests are something that one can reasonably stress over. If the district truly cared to ease the anxiety of students, it would foster a testing-positive environment. Giving students a chance to demonstrate their knowledge gives them the necessary skills to overcome their yips, and, as of now, they must if they wish to pursue any form of higher education. 

Beyond all of this discussion on the necessity of tests, due to higher education tests themselves hold merit. These tests are a fair assessment of a student’s knowledge and the myth that a student is a “poor tester” ignores that, even if that were to be true, what use is knowledge if it cannot be applied? Tests give feedback to students and teachers on exactly what they misunderstood and long-form papers allow students to see where they can convey themselves in a better manner. Midterms also allow counselors and teachers to truly seed out students who don’t belong in higher level classes or could handle the intensified workload. This data allows for a far more personalized education than is hindered by “teaching to the test.” Yes, no one wants to get a bad test grade, but a class must result in some learning. Say, for example, you take the state-mandated civics course offered at every school in Connecticut. At the end of the course, you are required to take a final that consists of the citizenship test which is required of immigrants seeking citizenship. If you take a civics course and cannot pass that test, you have failed to acquire the knowledge in that class. The same goes for math, if you were to be assessed on your ability to factor and graph equations and you couldn’t do that on a test then have you earned your grade in that class? The simple answer is no and educators and parents need to own up to the fact that we can’t coddle the GPA desires of every student. 

The clear call for our board of education is to end the showmanship and listen to our students who are suffering during their freshman years of college and contribute to the nearly 56% of students who drop out of university.