Of all students who qualify for a grade incentive on the CSTs, only a small fraction of them make an effort to take advantage of the opportunity.

A CST incentive is a great way to en- courage students to do well on the tests. If they get a minimum score of what the particular subject requires,it can help them boost both their grade and their GPA. CSTs are very important to schools. They show the state of California how well schools are doing and if they are meeting the set standards for each particular subject. Additionally, the tests show the progress and the time that teachers put towards help- ing each student to meet the criteria.Even though most students are capable of meet- ing CST incen- tives, there is only a small portion of them who put effort into doing well on the tests and actually make an attempt to benefit from this opportunity.

Therefore, controversy has arisen between students and the guidance office as to whether or not the responsibiliy of fulfilling the grade incentive has ought to be up to the students or the guidance office. Since many stu- dents either forget or don’t have the time to fill out the form, they believe that the responsibility of the incentives should be handeled by the guidance office.

Becoming mature and young adults, students must show some respon- sibilitity towards their accomplishments and the choices they make. It is true, of course, that the guidance office could take charge of the incentives and make the adjustments automatically, however, it should be the student’s responsibility to be in charge of receiving the benefit.

Of even greater importance, students will soon be entering adulthood and will begin college life. Being an adult in the outside world, an individual must know how to aproach certain initiatives. For instance, if someone has the desire to work in a specific field, they must prove themselves to the manager and show that they are both the reliable and responsible person for the task. Furthermore, if they put their responsibilities upon the manager or other co-workers, they will essentially assure the manager that they are not ac- countable for that particular job.

Each and every student is capable of getting a decent score on the CSTs in order to be qualified for a grade incentive. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of them show concern and take the respon- sibility of receiving the grade bump. Hopefully, students will soon realize that the more progress they make through high school, the more they will be responsible for handling tasks in the future.