It’s 7:45 in the morning and West Ottawa student Derrick Garcia walks into room 136.  Garcia will soon be taking the M-Step and is aware how long of a day is ahead of him.  Each student gruesomely opens their Chromebooks and heads to the M-Step site.  As students are logging in, English Instructor Livingston Garland writes on his board that all tests must be completed by 11:30.  Tired and not motivated to complete a nearly four hour long test, Garcia sits back in his chair and speculates why the M-Step is even necessary.

According to the Michigan Department of Education, the state requires every student to complete the M-Step, in order to track student progression.  By tracking student progression, the state can then determine the strengths and weaknesses of their education system and make adjustments; however, this reason simply isn’t valid enough to continue the M-Step.

The M-Step doesn’t benefit students, so many don’t feel the need to put forth effort on a non-beneficial four hour test.  With a good portion of students giving little to no effort on the M-Step, the progress results the state of Michigan receives are not accurate.  These non-accurate test results lead to changes in wrong areas of the education department.  Jr. Jonah Gawlik believes that having to take the M-Step is another pointless task added on to his to do list.  “Taking the M-Step feels like another useless box I need to check off, so there is definitely a lack of effort when it comes to taking the test.”

Taking the M-Step is also an immense time waster.  Instead of completing a four hour meaningless test, students could be doing something else more productive.  For instance, students could have their traditional schedules and continue to learn useful material in each of their classes.  Jr. Austin Waalkes believes that having a normal schedule is the best alternative, because students that give little to no effort on the M-Step essentially have half a day to put their heads down and rest.  “Those who click through questions in five minutes then take a three to four hour nap don’t walk away with any new knowledge…”

It’s blatantly evident that taking the M-Step is nonessential.  It doesn’t doesn’t provide the state with accurate testing results and it’s also inefficient when it comes to time.