Pros and Cons of Letting Students Re-Take Tests

This is a response to Larry Cuban's Blog about whether or not it is beneficial to students to retake tests if they receive a poor grade on their first attempt.  I believe that what the poor grade tells the teacher is that the student has not yet grasped or retained the information taught.  The student should be retaught the subject in a different way from the first introduction, and then allowed to retake the test. This retake should be offered to anyone in the class who wants to better their score, and it certainly wouldn't hurt to reinforce their knowledge of the topic.  I offered retakes in my business classes because I really wanted them to learn certain skills that I KNEW to be beneficial in today's business world.  Just getting a poor grade and moving on to a new topic/subject, is very defeating to students, especially if you want them to engage in new material with interest and a positive attitude.   

Mr. Cuban offers both sides of the coin in his blog, comments from those in favor of retakes, and those opposed to retakes based on a teacher belief that students should learn to give it their best try on the first test, and study hard for that test.  It is almost too easy to do poorly on the first test, study what you think will be on the retake, and probably at least pass the retake.  As a teacher, I always made a new test/quiz for the retake, so students would have to study all their notes, not just the ones that pertained to the first quiz/test.  To me, that seemed fair and didn't give them an unfair advantage over those that studied and did well on the first quiz/test.