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>If "teaching to the test" is a bad thing, that just means you have a bad test. Look at it this way: We do not want students to all know the same things. We wa
by sprout 16y ago
>If "teaching to the test" is a bad thing, that just means you have a bad test.
Look at it this way: We do not want students to all know the same things. We want to increase the amount of learning, but ideally, only 30-50% of the knowledge kids learn should be held in common. In a perfect world, the remaining 70% would be different from classroom to classroom. Varied experience is crucial to making our society function better.
So if we take varied experience as a value we want to encourage in our classrooms, you cannot have a good standard test, because the standard is more amount and quality of knowledge than a predefined notion of what knowledge is necessary to get by in the world.
And likewise, because this is how I value it, I would prefer that standardized testing be around one-third of the evaluation score, if not 20%. I want teachers and school administrations to be free to take big risks like teaching everyone computer science instead of math - because teaching a well-thought-out course of study is not a risk. Classrooms should definitely do instruction in ideas of the past (history is always vital), but more than anything they should be incubators for new ideas.
- shasta 16y agoWell, by your own admission, 30-50% of knowledge should be held in common. In early grades, the number is probably more like 90%. By high school, sure, there's plenty of room for diversified knowledge of literature and history, but there's also a core of math, logic, and reading that everyone should know. Why not test this stuff? Standardized tests are objective. Now, the current system focuses on meeting minimums, and most standardized tests quickly hit a ceiling. I'd much prefer to see tests that attempt to gage the entire breadth and depth of student learning. Practically, that's going to require different questions asked of different students, or you'll end up with a 10,000 question exam. But I still consider it standardized testing. The SAT and AP exams are great - we should do more of that earlier.
- sprout 16y ago>Why not test this stuff? Standardized tests are objective. Sure they are, but to what degree do they really reflect on the teacher? A teacher can be doing a fantastic, patient job with a student, and make zero progress all year with a student. That work is meaningful, but its effect could take years to show up. Can we measure this? Sure. But it will be very error-prone, and ultimately less effective than just asking the other people in the building who is worthless (everyone knows except the worthless themselves.) We're not looking to find the best and brightest - we as a society have made the decision that we're not going to pay that much. We just want to get rid of the unequivocally awful.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoSimple solution: create a set of standardized tests, on Math, History, etc, and require students only to pass a subset of them.