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and running with the issue of race Minorities comprise 48 percent of Quince Orchard's student body population, one of the highest percentages in Montgomery County. Different races and cultures have been woven together to create incredible diversity at Quince Orchard, making race a topic important to the QO community. Race is found everywhere--in the news, in every history and sociology textbook published today, in all major wars and in many of the controversial events that have occurred in the past month. Race can also influence the way people act, what they say, whom they admire, what they wear and how they think. However, this topic, while significant, is so sensitive that few people ever discuss it, for fear of offending one race or another. The end result of this is a great deal of ignorance about racial issues and, inevitably, racial conflict. In order to fully understand the way race affects society, we must first see how it affects the Quince Orchard community. In the enclosed supplemental issue, entitled The Prowler Plays the Race Card, The Prowler has tried to put together as thorough a discussion on race as possible. The many topics surrounding race have been dealt with head-on, without reservations and in a straightforward manner for the purpose of creating awareness about race and the way it affects the Quince Orchard community, the nation and the world. It would be impossible to make generalizations about any race based on its representation at Quince Orchard, as every racial stereotype is present here along with every exception. In essence, QO is a microcosm of the United States in the 21st century, and that is why The Prowler is playing the race card. What, exactly, is being tested on an exam? The proposal to increase the final exam from 25 to 30 percent of the semester grade is an enormous mistake for MCPS. First of all, a final exam is one particular measure of a student on one particular day. What is not taken into account is the following: The teacher's lack of skill in developing an exam. Very often, a teacher will write a poorly-constructed, invalid exam that merely reinforces the teacher's biases and misinformation on a particular subject. If an exam is created by the county, depending on what students have been taught by their teachers, they may be at a disadvantage. Although there are guidelines as to what needs to be covered over the course of a semester, there will always be questions on a county exam that involve material not covered by some classes. A student's performance on one particular day, regardless of circumstances. If the student is ill, if the student's father was drunk the night before the exam and beat up the student's mother, if the student was babysitting until 2 AM, none of that is taken into account. Only a number--that's all the student has. Our question is this: What protection does the student have against an incompetent teacher who writes an invalid exam? At this point, nothing. This needs to change. If exams are to become 30 percent of a student's grade, then we demand that every teacher's exam be reviewed by the department chair and by at least one other teacher. The exam would then be certified by other professionals in the field, and would provide greater protection to the students. |