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Teaching to the tests never stopped being a concern from the circles I can remember. No Child Left Behind is an interesting fence post on this, though. "Sold

by taeric 3y ago

Teaching to the tests never stopped being a concern from the circles I can remember. No Child Left Behind is an interesting fence post on this, though. "Sold a Story" was rather effective at showing the major opposition to all things Bush in that legislation and how it backfired heavily for reading. As so many opponents of that act railed against how it was pushing for reading to be tested, and how we are still struggling from that. That said, I do not have hard data here. Happy to be shown I was wrong that that peaked about that time. For teaching/learning, I confess I'm more partial to https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/getting-it-wrong/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/getting-it-wrong/. I'm curious to know more on studies like this, so I'll be looking up some of the NTL studies you are referencing. Would be delighted if you have a good reference on them. My "f you" to sight words is just hearkening back to the "Sold a Story" thing. So many of the "best practices" for teaching reading from teachers centered around "sight words" and such. Which, I suppose you can frame that to teaching to a test. But I think it is more teaching the wrong things. And flat out not teaching any technique to reading. Which, that last is fully to your point. I don't want techniques ignored or passed over. So if there is large scale evidence that that is happening, I'm very interested in the evidence.

mlyle 3y ago
> That said, I do not have hard data here. Happy to be shown I was wrong that that peaked about that time. I'm consistently confused about what you're saying. Peaked during what time? You've said it peaked -after- test scores started declining. I said it peaked before tests started declining in 2012. It indeed peaked before 2012: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0dgnnq6&hl=en https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%... You'll find most of the most critical articles in 2001-2004 if you search past media results, too. There's been a bit of a recent resurgence. > For teaching/learning, I confess I'm more partial to https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/getting-it-wrong/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/getting-it-wrong/. I have no problem with hard tests given to students as a learning tool, which is what your article advocates for. Indeed, I use difficult pre-tests a lot, and my target % correct on tests that I give to students is a 60% average, because this gives me the most statistical power to measure knowledge and students performance. Because a very large proportion of my students are above 80% in national norms, giving them a test that they'll miss 40% of available points is a quite difficult one. I am not a fan of tests used to measure educators: not because measuring educators isn't useful, but because I believe it incentivizes the wrong behaviors from educators. I consider myself fortunate to not be managed in this way. The time when I got close to this (teaching an AP class) is an experience that I don't really care to repeat, even though my students did well and and my class was one of the most popular at the school. I felt like I did not have enough freedom to do well (discussed above).
- taeric 3y ago
  Apologies, went to sleep. I don't actually see a defined peak in that trend chart. Such that I'm not clear what point that is making, all told. Though, I also didn't claim that worries on "teaching to the test" had peaked. That is your claim. If it did indeed peak during that timeframe, I'd be game to see explorations of that. If the linked chart is all we have, that looks more like noise and hints that the regional variation in how hot of a topic it is dominates. Which could explain why you noticed it drop off in your circles, but I did not. I also fully suspect we would be in more violent agreement on these topics than this thread looks. :D I also do not like scoring teachers in that way, necessarily. I don't have a good alternative, but I fully agree that it screws up incentives and is the direct reason we get the degenerate cases. Cheating, in particular, being far worse than teaching to the test.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    Just to clarify what I was saying: You claimed they -started during declining test scores-: "My assertion, then, would be to point that "teaching to the tests" concerns started and continued through a time that tests scores have decrease" Meanwhile, they clearly were very big from 2001-2005 (and according to linked chart, have decreased in intensity since that time). And test scores started to decline around 2012. That is why I mentioned that they had peaked around 2005, because that was well before the period of declining test scores.
    - taeric 3y ago
      Ah, I think I see the main contention. Most of the time I hear folks talking about "teaching to the tests" they are upset that they are just getting kids so that they can pass the tests. Indeed, even one of your complaints was that you had to compromise your teaching so that they could score better. My point is that if that is the concern, they are failing even at that. Test scores are going down, such that most of the arguments that they learned the tests, but not life skills, are moot. They aren't even passing the tests. That is, I didn't mean to claim that they simply started during declining scores. I meant more that the scores are declining now. If the concern is that they are "teaching to the tests", my bigger concern is why are they so bad at that, even? For timing, the assessments seem to be that they have been declining steadily since 2012. If your claim is that the "teach to the tests peaked in 200x" and that that is why tests are failing, that should have started reversing with kids this year? (I assume the assertion is there would be a 7ish year lag on kindergarten kids getting to age 13, to be reflected in this story. Obviously not a full step function, but I don't have a solid model on that. Love it if you have one.) To that end, my assertion would be that if they were at least able to pass the tests, that would still be an improvement over where we seem to be. Test scores are falling. Why? It can't be that teachers are just teaching to the tests. Or, rather, if it is, they are doing a bad job at that, even. I'm assuming the idea is that the kids are passing lower level tests better, but failing later tests? I'll take a quick dive on some of that later, to see if that hypothesis holds up.

by taeric 3y ago

mlyle 3y ago

> That said, I do not have hard data here. Happy to be shown I was wrong that that peaked about that time. I'm consistently confused about what you're saying. Peaked during what time? You've said it peaked -after- test scores started declining. I said it peaked before tests started declining in 2012. It indeed peaked before 2012: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0dgnnq6&hl=en https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%... You'll find most of the most critical articles in 2001-2004 if you search past media results, too. There's been a bit of a recent resurgence. > For teaching/learning, I confess I'm more partial to https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/getting-it-wrong/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/getting-it-wrong/. I have no problem with hard tests given to students as a learning tool, which is what your article advocates for. Indeed, I use difficult pre-tests a lot, and my target % correct on tests that I give to students is a 60% average, because this gives me the most statistical power to measure knowledge and students performance. Because a very large proportion of my students are above 80% in national norms, giving them a test that they'll miss 40% of available points is a quite difficult one. I am not a fan of tests used to measure educators: not because measuring educators isn't useful, but because I believe it incentivizes the wrong behaviors from educators. I consider myself fortunate to not be managed in this way. The time when I got close to this (teaching an AP class) is an experience that I don't really care to repeat, even though my students did well and and my class was one of the most popular at the school. I felt like I did not have enough freedom to do well (discussed above).

taeric 3y ago
Apologies, went to sleep. I don't actually see a defined peak in that trend chart. Such that I'm not clear what point that is making, all told. Though, I also didn't claim that worries on "teaching to the test" had peaked. That is your claim. If it did indeed peak during that timeframe, I'd be game to see explorations of that. If the linked chart is all we have, that looks more like noise and hints that the regional variation in how hot of a topic it is dominates. Which could explain why you noticed it drop off in your circles, but I did not. I also fully suspect we would be in more violent agreement on these topics than this thread looks. :D I also do not like scoring teachers in that way, necessarily. I don't have a good alternative, but I fully agree that it screws up incentives and is the direct reason we get the degenerate cases. Cheating, in particular, being far worse than teaching to the test.
- mlyle 3y ago
  Just to clarify what I was saying: You claimed they -started during declining test scores-: "My assertion, then, would be to point that "teaching to the tests" concerns started and continued through a time that tests scores have decrease" Meanwhile, they clearly were very big from 2001-2005 (and according to linked chart, have decreased in intensity since that time). And test scores started to decline around 2012. That is why I mentioned that they had peaked around 2005, because that was well before the period of declining test scores.
  - taeric 3y ago
    Ah, I think I see the main contention. Most of the time I hear folks talking about "teaching to the tests" they are upset that they are just getting kids so that they can pass the tests. Indeed, even one of your complaints was that you had to compromise your teaching so that they could score better. My point is that if that is the concern, they are failing even at that. Test scores are going down, such that most of the arguments that they learned the tests, but not life skills, are moot. They aren't even passing the tests. That is, I didn't mean to claim that they simply started during declining scores. I meant more that the scores are declining now. If the concern is that they are "teaching to the tests", my bigger concern is why are they so bad at that, even? For timing, the assessments seem to be that they have been declining steadily since 2012. If your claim is that the "teach to the tests peaked in 200x" and that that is why tests are failing, that should have started reversing with kids this year? (I assume the assertion is there would be a 7ish year lag on kindergarten kids getting to age 13, to be reflected in this story. Obviously not a full step function, but I don't have a solid model on that. Love it if you have one.) To that end, my assertion would be that if they were at least able to pass the tests, that would still be an improvement over where we seem to be. Test scores are falling. Why? It can't be that teachers are just teaching to the tests. Or, rather, if it is, they are doing a bad job at that, even. I'm assuming the idea is that the kids are passing lower level tests better, but failing later tests? I'll take a quick dive on some of that later, to see if that hypothesis holds up.