Email regarding TAKS

My daughter (now 27) was an A/B student in high school. However, she frequently had trouble with "big exams" - SAT, ACT, placement exams, etc. She just seemed to psych herself out for them and frequently scored low. Her high school grades suffered slightly - but her day to day work and end of chapter testing kept her grades up and graduated in the top 25% of her class. She passed her TAAS tests (precursor to TAKS) on the first try - but with lower scores than she was of truly capable of.

When she entered college she was required to take a math placement test which she did extremely poorly on. The university required her to take a below college level math class. She aced the class - the only person who had a perfect score on assignments and chapter tests. Clearly she knew the material - just did a lousy job on the test. She received no special tutoring or assistance in college or high school.

Sometimes testing isn't the only way to measure a persons mastery of material. Some people simply don't "test" well. I support the idea of end of course testing as a better measure - but there should be some provision for students to take the end of course exam a second time if their test scores don't match up with their class work.