by Angela Lee, staff reporter
The Measures of Student Learning test(s), otherwise known as the MoSL, are subject tests given to students at the beginning and at the end of the school year.
Based on your scores in the MoSLs for English Language Arts, History, Math, and Science, the Department of Education (DOE) as well as teachers can determine how much a student has improved over the course of the school year. However, what one gets on the MoSL will not and never has affected a student’s grade.
“In my opinion the MoSLs seem to give us an opportunity to see how much we’ve improved, or can improve, throughout the year. It shows the students how much they’ve learned,” junior Bella Lassus said.
The MoSLs track how much a student improved or worsened as the school year went on.
It is a multiple-subjects test that helps a student and their teacher see where they are and how much they’ve progressed.
The scores a student gets will not be included in their final grade, whether or not they passed with a high grade or failed completely.
“I don’t think the MoSLs should be a necessary part of our curriculum, because during those two days that we were required to take them, we could have been learning things that we needed to know for the Regents. Instead, we had to take a test that doesn’t even count towards our final grade,” junior Maria Koutmanis said.
The MoSLs are unnecessarily stressful and give less time to the students to prepare for their Regents.
When the teachers are required to hand out a test, they aren’t able to teach their lessons to their Regents classes, lessons the students need in order to pass the Regents in June.
With the MoSLs, the teachers and the students have less time to prepare themselves, and as a result might need to rush through certain topics in their subject to finish everything at the end of the year.
This rush might cause students to not fully understand the material, giving them a lower score on the Regents compared to if they did.
The MoSLs should not be necessary because they take valuable time away from whatever the students were learning.
In the two-day period of testing, the students may forget what they learned previously. In addition, the students may feel that, since the MoSLs don’t count towards their final grade… they shouldn’t work so hard to complete it or put in any effort while they’re taking it.
This provides an inaccurate record of how much the student progressed over the course of the school year.
One might know more than what they are able to put down in a 90 minute span. Test anxiety or any other variable in this situation might also take a toll on how well the student does on his or her test.
This shouldn’t be seen as the student being incapable of putting down what they learned over the course of the year, but rather one reason out of many that proves the MoSLs should not be a necessary or a required part of our school curriculum.
