Does passing a test mean success?

Editor's note: Shulman is a Herald student columnist from Kennedy High School, which has students from Bellmore and Merrick.

To graduate high school in New York, every student must pass a variety of Regents exams. In principle, the exams are a good thing. They ensure that graduates know enough of the basic concepts from each subject to pass a test. In practice, however, the Regents exams show nothing.

The important word in the last paragraph was “basic.” The Regents exams are not tests of thinking; they are primarily tests of memorization of the most basic material from each course. So basic are the tests, in fact, that in 1999 New York state started administering the Living Environment Regents exam. Having removed so many of the biological concepts from what is supposed to be a biology course, even the state seems to not have felt confident enough to call the test a biology exam.

As a result, many students are not taught to think about a subject, only to memorize things about it, and so often the material is forgotten after the exam. Teaching students to think critically in every subject will allow greater success in life, for critical thinking is a learned skill that will not be forgotten, even when some or most of the subject matter inevitably is.

Numerous teachers say that they can “predict” what will be on the Regents, as the questions every year are similar, if not simply reworded. The fact that the questions can be predicted discourages teachers from presenting information to students that may not be on the test but is still crucial to the subject. It should be noted that the same teachers who have the ability to predict questions are often the ones who go above the requirement.

The good thing is that Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District has a much higher graduation rate than the statewide average, which can be attributed to our having better teachers and therefore students doing more than rote memorization. I think that most of our teachers do a good job of teaching more than is required by New York state and not teaching to the test. While the state may have taken the biology out of its biology course, the teachers at Kennedy have not.

Another great example is honors chemistry, for which many teachers cover multiple advanced concepts not included on the Regents exam. Students learn more and can apply what they have learned more often. Our schools are doing a good job of not succumbing to the pressure that is the Regents, and therefore the students are having a more positive, and useful, experience.