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Student's Opinions on Educational Assessments

Engagement in linguistic education is a nation-wide concern. There needed to be a way to keep track of students’ writing skills in a way that was unbiased and convenient. Soon enough, the National Education Association (NEA) came up with the practice of a District Writing Assessment (DWA). A student tells The Windjammer, “I feel like it is unnecessary because everyone knows English… so why do we need to talk about it?”

Educational assessments have been around for a long time, first introduced in the early 1960s by Francis Keppel, contemporary U.S. Commissioner of Education. From report cards, to SATs, to the DWA, the National Assessment of Education Process (NAEP) decided that assessments would be the best way to showcase where students’ proficiency levels were. They are described as “summary descriptive statistics of "input" variables in the education system… gathering data on such "output" variables as how much students are learning and what progress is being made [in] U.S. education,” (NAEP). 

However, nobody ever asks students how they feel about these assessments. With the upcoming DWA, AP testing, and SATs, I decided to ask around. A handful of students have expressed their own annoyance with the DWA, either due to bad timing, stress or lack of engagement. 

Students have complained about the topics chosen for these assessments, saying they feel too random or nonsensical, even irrelevant. They yearn for topics of interest, something that they would actually want to write about. In one instance, it’s been suggested that the NEA brings in major topics such as politics; it’d give students more to write about and perhaps serve more for discussion.

Some feel as if the time limit is unfair and stressful. On average, students will get about 3 days to write their essay. An hour to write each part, each hour parted by three, consecutive classroom sessions. That sort of dread doesn’t sit well with some people. Conversely, there are people who feel as if the timing helps, at least allowing them to think before getting back into it.

As for the DWA itself, everyone is trying their best to prepare. On such short notice and with everything going on, it’s hard to keep track. For everyone taking it, good luck and stay safe.

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