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>People want a way to evaluate student performance in a way that works across many schools, districts, and states. Except what they are evaluating holds no mea

>People want a way to evaluate student performance in a way that works across many schools, districts, and states. Except what they are evaluating holds no meaning. Standardized tests are nonsense. Tests in general are. What you're measuring isn't knowledge, or understanding, what you're measuring is compliance to artificial and highly contrived environments. Which is a pretty useless skill, especially when compared to a deep understanding of the subject matter. >Teach better around the tests. By the FSM, NO. Teach around understanding, around critical thinking, logic and reason. But not around tests. This is exactly the kind of teaching that destroyed any interest I had in subjects that where taught back in school. There's nothing more frustrating to learn things not because they might be interesting, or because the deep understanding of the subject might be useful, but because they are on the next test. Granted, there are subjects where you can't teach "understanding" per se. History is such a subject. It's based on a lot of numbers, names and places, most of which are simple facts (WWII happened from 1933-1945 etc). However, I would argue that this means it's completely useless to do tests on history. What are you testing? Essentially memorization. Which is a useful skill, but not one on which a lot of your grades should depend. Especially because a lot of students spend hours memorizing facts which they will have forgotten a week after the test, and that time time could have been better spend on sensible things. >But implying that the very idea of standardized testing is constricting is a waste of time. They aren't going anywhere. You're essentially saying that because we can't do much about them makes them any less useless and constricting. Arguing that the problem can't be solved doesn't make the problem go away.

waterlesscloud 15y ago
My point is that it doesn't matter if standardized testing has "meaning" or not, people still want it. They will continue to want it. People want to compare student and school and district performance, and standardized testing is how they're going to measure that. It doesn't really matter if it "works" or not, the decision making behind it is not logical, and it never will be. I'm not saying to center the teaching on the test, but to teach around them. The tests are here to stay. You have to do well on them. This is not something there is a choice about. But that doesn't mean you can't do well on the test and at the same time teach around it. Not for it, around it. Also, that's a strange idea that history is about rote memorization and not about understanding. Maybe I got lucky with my history teachers, but for me it was all about understanding how it all fit together, not raw facts.
- slowpoke 15y ago
  >My point is that it doesn't matter if standardized testing has "meaning" or not, people still want it. They will continue to want it. People want to compare student and school and district performance, and standardized testing is how they're going to measure that. That isn't an argument. That's a status quo fallacy. It doesn't matter if people want it or not, it's nonsense and should be abolished. Also, I highly doubt that people actually want this. The ones who want this broken system are businesses and corporations, because it saves them time and effort, and society as a whole has to shoulder the cost for their laziness. The education system must not bow to the demands of businesses and corporations; it has be the other way round. >The tests are here to stay. You have to do well on them. This is not something there is a choice about. Sorry, if everyone thought and acted like this, we'd never have any progress. This way of thinking is exactly the reason why this broken system is still around. Stop telling people that you can't change it and that they should shut up and accept it. That's cancerous and harmful. Speak out. Voice your discontent about this nonsense. Tell other people to do the same. People who just accept anything are everything that's wrong with the world, and the ones who propagate this attitude are even worse.
  - waterlesscloud 15y ago
    In what way do businesses or corporations care about standardized testing? Sure, the businesses that directly provide the testing services, I guess. Beyond that, which businesses? This is not some sin of the corporate world here. This is an artifact of the educational system. Of administrators and politicians and parents. It's a way to look like they're making some sort of progress. Businesses couldn't care less.
vacri 15y ago
I am stunned that you think history is just a list of dates. It's an understanding of motives and events. WWII isn't just "from here to here", it's why each of the Axis powers did what they did. why the Allied powers did what they did. It does not matter that Pearl Harbour happened on Dec 7 1941, what matters is why the Japanese attacked, how it came about. Understanding both the US and Japanese points of view around that event. Understanding the different arguments for and against "I have in my hand a piece of paper", of leibensraum, of making the trains run on time (or at least saying you did)... An understanding of history is essential to understand both why and how politics works in the modern day. To toss it all aside as 'dates, names, and places' is just... uneducated. From the rest of your comment, it sounds like you're a hard science person doing the usual thoughtless dismissal of the soft sciences.
- viraptor 15y ago
  I think you're just confirming his position. He says he learnt because the tests required it. That information is what tests would require - dry facts, not understanding. And yeah - that would be uneducated. Isn't that why the tests exists - so that we aren't?
  - slowpoke 15y ago
    >Isn't that why the tests exists - so that we aren't? False. Tests don't serve education, they hinder it. That's my entire point.
- tomprince 15y ago
  Or perhaps simple presenting the view of history that was acquired from school. Demonstrating the limited viepoint that standardized testing promotes.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- slowpoke 15y ago
  I'm sorry, I might have miss-phrased my comment or poorly expressed myself. I didn't mean to say that what I described is actually history. I'm well aware that history is about a lot more things than just dates. What I described is the crippled shadow of history that they cram into kids in school. Anyways, it was just an example, and maybe a bad one. My point was that the current education system is most efficient at destroying any semblance of real interest in the subjects which are taught. Actually, I should have chosen math as my example, which is by far the worst offender. That thing called "math" in school (and which has nothing to do with real math) made me loathe the subject, and now, as a CS student, I still have a hard time to get rid of this attitude towards it.

waterlesscloud 15y ago

My point is that it doesn't matter if standardized testing has "meaning" or not, people still want it. They will continue to want it. People want to compare student and school and district performance, and standardized testing is how they're going to measure that. It doesn't really matter if it "works" or not, the decision making behind it is not logical, and it never will be. I'm not saying to center the teaching on the test, but to teach around them. The tests are here to stay. You have to do well on them. This is not something there is a choice about. But that doesn't mean you can't do well on the test and at the same time teach around it. Not for it, around it. Also, that's a strange idea that history is about rote memorization and not about understanding. Maybe I got lucky with my history teachers, but for me it was all about understanding how it all fit together, not raw facts.

slowpoke 15y ago
>My point is that it doesn't matter if standardized testing has "meaning" or not, people still want it. They will continue to want it. People want to compare student and school and district performance, and standardized testing is how they're going to measure that. That isn't an argument. That's a status quo fallacy. It doesn't matter if people want it or not, it's nonsense and should be abolished. Also, I highly doubt that people actually want this. The ones who want this broken system are businesses and corporations, because it saves them time and effort, and society as a whole has to shoulder the cost for their laziness. The education system must not bow to the demands of businesses and corporations; it has be the other way round. >The tests are here to stay. You have to do well on them. This is not something there is a choice about. Sorry, if everyone thought and acted like this, we'd never have any progress. This way of thinking is exactly the reason why this broken system is still around. Stop telling people that you can't change it and that they should shut up and accept it. That's cancerous and harmful. Speak out. Voice your discontent about this nonsense. Tell other people to do the same. People who just accept anything are everything that's wrong with the world, and the ones who propagate this attitude are even worse.
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  In what way do businesses or corporations care about standardized testing? Sure, the businesses that directly provide the testing services, I guess. Beyond that, which businesses? This is not some sin of the corporate world here. This is an artifact of the educational system. Of administrators and politicians and parents. It's a way to look like they're making some sort of progress. Businesses couldn't care less.

vacri 15y ago

I am stunned that you think history is just a list of dates. It's an understanding of motives and events. WWII isn't just "from here to here", it's why each of the Axis powers did what they did. why the Allied powers did what they did. It does not matter that Pearl Harbour happened on Dec 7 1941, what matters is why the Japanese attacked, how it came about. Understanding both the US and Japanese points of view around that event. Understanding the different arguments for and against "I have in my hand a piece of paper", of leibensraum, of making the trains run on time (or at least saying you did)... An understanding of history is essential to understand both why and how politics works in the modern day. To toss it all aside as 'dates, names, and places' is just... uneducated. From the rest of your comment, it sounds like you're a hard science person doing the usual thoughtless dismissal of the soft sciences.

viraptor 15y ago
I think you're just confirming his position. He says he learnt because the tests required it. That information is what tests would require - dry facts, not understanding. And yeah - that would be uneducated. Isn't that why the tests exists - so that we aren't?
- slowpoke 15y ago
  >Isn't that why the tests exists - so that we aren't? False. Tests don't serve education, they hinder it. That's my entire point.
tomprince 15y ago
Or perhaps simple presenting the view of history that was acquired from school. Demonstrating the limited viepoint that standardized testing promotes.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
slowpoke 15y ago
I'm sorry, I might have miss-phrased my comment or poorly expressed myself. I didn't mean to say that what I described is actually history. I'm well aware that history is about a lot more things than just dates. What I described is the crippled shadow of history that they cram into kids in school. Anyways, it was just an example, and maybe a bad one. My point was that the current education system is most efficient at destroying any semblance of real interest in the subjects which are taught. Actually, I should have chosen math as my example, which is by far the worst offender. That thing called "math" in school (and which has nothing to do with real math) made me loathe the subject, and now, as a CS student, I still have a hard time to get rid of this attitude towards it.