Maryland’s Graduation Requirement Changes:

Maryland recently decided to make the passing of certain tests mandatory for students to earn their diplomas. However, they also added in two ways to help students who may struggle in certain subjects or with written exams in general. First, the test scores for each section are all added up, similar to the SAT, and if the overall grade fits within a set range it is considered passing. Secondly, if a student does not do well on a certain exam they can choose to bring up their grade with an assigned project.

Personally I like this idea. As horribly as I did in some courses in high school (namely math and science) having a fall-back option like the project would have definitely have taken the stress level of those courses down a lot. But I wonder if students might rely too heavily on those fall-back options. I think whoever is in charge of those projects should be prepared because in a few years students may have realized that they can still pass without studying for the big test.