Are there too many end-of-the-year events at schools?

Many parents set their oven to 350 degrees in early May to bake muffins for the teacher appreciation breakfast and keep it hot until the last batch of brownies comes out for the final-day-of-school party next week.

Schools are caught between two colliding trends: The first is fanfare for even the mundane; the Wall Street Journal once described it as “ceremony inflation, making nearly every life passage from preschool graduation to post-graduate exams the focal point of festivities.”

The second trend is the rise of tests that carry real consequences for students and schools. To prevent high school students from blowing off state end-of-course tests, scores now count for 20 percent of final grades in Georgia. But, at the same time we’ve made tests a pivotal factor in student grades, teacher evaluations and college admissions, we’ve crammed the testing season with concerts, parties, banquets and performances.