Going to School During Spring Break?!?

I know everyone is excited for spring break next week, but what if we were students at a “chronically failing” high school and during spring break, we attended tutoring review sessions to prepare for standardized testing? I don’t know about you, but I believe spring break is meant to be a break! Even if there are projects, papers and work (one of the major pitfalls of a semester system), at least we do not have to attend classes and tutoring sessions with teachers at school.

Spruce High School in Texas held math review sessions during spring break for a group of 87 students. This was an attempt to increase the scores on the upcoming Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) tests. The threat is that the school will be closed if they fail to meet the standards again.

What do you think about holding review sessions during spring break? Do you think this was a necessary step in an attempt to raise test scores? With the smaller groupings of students, do you think the more individualized attention will ultimately lead to more learning and thus, higher scores? Do you think taking away that break from school is overall beneficial for students?

This article by Diane Rado was published March 17, 2010 in The Dallas Morning News.