5 ms·

Not an American, so don't know much about your school system tbh, but what is bad about these tests? The benefits of them (I guess), is that you can collect da

by Tehnix 13y ago

Not an American, so don't know much about your school system tbh, but what is bad about these tests? The benefits of them (I guess), is that you can collect data on how kids are doing around various parts of the country, and maybe look at some areas where the kids are doing poorer than others to see if the education is lacking. I don't see any downsides at all other than "my kids might get stressed" which is rather silly. edit: just to clarify, I am all for the ability to opt-out if you want, but it seems these testings are generally disliked.

unethical_ban 13y ago
There is far too much weight put on a handful of tests. It can pass/fail kids for the year in courses, depending on location. And since the standardized tests, now being created by quasi-federal coalitions like C-SCOPE, are so important, everything in a curriculum is focused on teaching to the test. No exploration, no flexibility in how to teach.
- WalterBright 13y ago
  If the test does not cover the material that is supposed to be learned, is it the particular test that's at fault, or is testing at fault? I suspect the former. After all, would you get on an airliner where the pilot flunked the written pilot's exam? Would you see a doctor that flunked the medical board exam? Do you think people ought to get drivers' licenses even if they fail the written exam?
  - unethical_ban 13y ago
    I get what you're saying, but "education" isn't a vocational activity. There are a lot of issues with public education (age-based grade levels, difficulties of each subject tied to the same grade level, rigid teaching methods, etc) that contribute, and the standardized tests are an easy thing to see is wrong.
avalaunch 13y ago
I believe the problem is that schools end up pandering to the standardized tests, creating curriculum designed specifically to help students achieve higher test scores. This is bad because the tests have a narrow focus and anything not within that focus is deemphasized, or not taught at all. Other objections are that the tests are biased towards or against certain segments of the population and that they don't accurately assess the quality of education.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
nknighthb 13y ago
They force teachers to teach to the test if they want to keep their jobs. School becomes rote memorization. And there's no allowance for poor areas, non-English-speaking areas, or special-needs kids. The response to poor test results is not more funding for underprivileged schools or real reform, it's to fire teachers and close "under-performing" schools. Standardized testing isn't used as a feedback mechanism to learn what works and what doesn't, what can be improved and what's doing fine. It's used as a weapon against public education.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  I can't find an example Colorado test, but here are NY and CA tests: http://www.nysedregents.org/Grade8/Mathematics/20100505book1.pdf http://www.nysedregents.org/Grade8/Mathematics/20100505book1... http://www.nysedregents.org/Grade8/EnglishLanguageArts/042610book1w.pdf http://www.nysedregents.org/Grade8/EnglishLanguageArts/04261... http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/documents/cstrtqmath7.pdf http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/documents/cstrtqmath7.pdf Please explain with specifics how to "teach to the test" in a manner that doesn't increase student knowledge.(If "teaching to the test" increases student knowledge then it's a good thing.) I have no idea why you believe measuring outputs is a "weapon against public education". Are clinical trials a "weapon against pharmacy"? Is a sales board a "weapon against salesmen"? Your critique that "there's no allowance for poor areas, non-English-speaking areas, or special-needs kids" is simply ignorant. If anything, modern testing systems are more difficult for teachers of top students (who have nowhere to go but down). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_modeling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_modeling
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > I have no idea why you believe measuring outputs is a "weapon against public education". Because the specific legal programs making state testing regimes a condition of federal funding were overtly -- by their sponsors -- heralded as tools to provide information to parents that would lead them to opt into private schools (which, those same sponsors proposed, should be subsidized by public vouchers that redirect funds from the public schools), which private schools would not be subject to the same testing requirements.
zmmmmm 13y ago
> The benefits of them (I guess), is that you can collect data on how kids are doing around various parts of the country, and maybe look at some areas where the kids are doing poorer than others to see if the education is lacking. The thing is - this is easily achievable by sampling. You don't need to test every single kid to figure out broad trends. The tests reveal nothing at that level that couldn't be ascertained through other means. > I don't see any downsides at all other than "my kids might get stressed" which is rather silly. The biggest downside is that inevitably the minute such a system is introduced nearly the entire educational program becomes bent on preparing kids for the test. If it can't be tested, it just falls through the cracks and isn't taught. But we all know schooling, especially in younger years, is about so much more than being able to reproduce a small set of measurable skills. I also think your "rather silly" comment is a bit flippant. For someone who is not bothered by tests this might seem reasonable. But for kids that are not ready, introducing them to high stress testing situations can scar them badly and impair their performance for life. For a child that does not react well (through lack of maturity) to a testing environment, it means inevitably they will do very poorly on the test, which will feed back into their self esteem and have a high risk of setting back their educational progress.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  You don't need to test every single kid to figure out broad trends. To determine the performance of an individual teacher, you pretty much do. You want to measure teacher performance from a sample of 5/30 students? Too noisy. Even 30 students is far from ideal. Testing every child is also a great way to prevent schools from "randomly" cherrypicking which students take the test.
- Tehnix 13y ago
  >I also think your "rather silly" comment is a bit flippant. For someone who is not bothered by tests this might seem reasonable. It's not like I love exams myself? This is simply something people should learn to deal with. >But for kids that are not ready, introducing them to high stress testing situations can scar them badly and impair their performance for life. If your kid gets scared for life by a test, then I'm afraid you simply haven't prepared them for life at all. Test might be frightening, I'll grant you that, but it's such a normal part of the education system and a lot of other things, that it simply is something one must learn to cope with in some way or another. There's often counseling or guidance you can get if you really have anxiety. >it means inevitably they will do very poorly on the test, which will feed back into their self esteem and have a high risk of setting back their educational progress. Then you deal with that by helping them as I mentioned in the last sentence in the paragraph before. It can also be an indicator that the child simply hasn't learned what it was expected to have learned, and therefore isn't ready to progress yet. Kids aren't fragile little things that'll break so easily. I'll stand on my earlier claim and would say "sparing" them of such things will do more harm to them later on in their life than it will do them good. You can't always hold you child in the hand, and if they never learn to deal with stressful situations it will have a much larger impact later on in life.

by Tehnix 13y ago

unethical_ban 13y ago

There is far too much weight put on a handful of tests. It can pass/fail kids for the year in courses, depending on location. And since the standardized tests, now being created by quasi-federal coalitions like C-SCOPE, are so important, everything in a curriculum is focused on teaching to the test. No exploration, no flexibility in how to teach.

WalterBright 13y ago
If the test does not cover the material that is supposed to be learned, is it the particular test that's at fault, or is testing at fault? I suspect the former. After all, would you get on an airliner where the pilot flunked the written pilot's exam? Would you see a doctor that flunked the medical board exam? Do you think people ought to get drivers' licenses even if they fail the written exam?
- unethical_ban 13y ago
  I get what you're saying, but "education" isn't a vocational activity. There are a lot of issues with public education (age-based grade levels, difficulties of each subject tied to the same grade level, rigid teaching methods, etc) that contribute, and the standardized tests are an easy thing to see is wrong.

avalaunch 13y ago

I believe the problem is that schools end up pandering to the standardized tests, creating curriculum designed specifically to help students achieve higher test scores. This is bad because the tests have a narrow focus and anything not within that focus is deemphasized, or not taught at all. Other objections are that the tests are biased towards or against certain segments of the population and that they don't accurately assess the quality of education.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

nknighthb 13y ago

They force teachers to teach to the test if they want to keep their jobs. School becomes rote memorization. And there's no allowance for poor areas, non-English-speaking areas, or special-needs kids. The response to poor test results is not more funding for underprivileged schools or real reform, it's to fire teachers and close "under-performing" schools. Standardized testing isn't used as a feedback mechanism to learn what works and what doesn't, what can be improved and what's doing fine. It's used as a weapon against public education.

yummyfajitas 13y ago
I can't find an example Colorado test, but here are NY and CA tests: http://www.nysedregents.org/Grade8/Mathematics/20100505book1.pdf http://www.nysedregents.org/Grade8/Mathematics/20100505book1... http://www.nysedregents.org/Grade8/EnglishLanguageArts/042610book1w.pdf http://www.nysedregents.org/Grade8/EnglishLanguageArts/04261... http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/documents/cstrtqmath7.pdf http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/documents/cstrtqmath7.pdf Please explain with specifics how to "teach to the test" in a manner that doesn't increase student knowledge.(If "teaching to the test" increases student knowledge then it's a good thing.) I have no idea why you believe measuring outputs is a "weapon against public education". Are clinical trials a "weapon against pharmacy"? Is a sales board a "weapon against salesmen"? Your critique that "there's no allowance for poor areas, non-English-speaking areas, or special-needs kids" is simply ignorant. If anything, modern testing systems are more difficult for teachers of top students (who have nowhere to go but down). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_modeling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_modeling
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > I have no idea why you believe measuring outputs is a "weapon against public education". Because the specific legal programs making state testing regimes a condition of federal funding were overtly -- by their sponsors -- heralded as tools to provide information to parents that would lead them to opt into private schools (which, those same sponsors proposed, should be subsidized by public vouchers that redirect funds from the public schools), which private schools would not be subject to the same testing requirements.

zmmmmm 13y ago

> The benefits of them (I guess), is that you can collect data on how kids are doing around various parts of the country, and maybe look at some areas where the kids are doing poorer than others to see if the education is lacking. The thing is - this is easily achievable by sampling. You don't need to test every single kid to figure out broad trends. The tests reveal nothing at that level that couldn't be ascertained through other means. > I don't see any downsides at all other than "my kids might get stressed" which is rather silly. The biggest downside is that inevitably the minute such a system is introduced nearly the entire educational program becomes bent on preparing kids for the test. If it can't be tested, it just falls through the cracks and isn't taught. But we all know schooling, especially in younger years, is about so much more than being able to reproduce a small set of measurable skills. I also think your "rather silly" comment is a bit flippant. For someone who is not bothered by tests this might seem reasonable. But for kids that are not ready, introducing them to high stress testing situations can scar them badly and impair their performance for life. For a child that does not react well (through lack of maturity) to a testing environment, it means inevitably they will do very poorly on the test, which will feed back into their self esteem and have a high risk of setting back their educational progress.

yummyfajitas 13y ago
You don't need to test every single kid to figure out broad trends. To determine the performance of an individual teacher, you pretty much do. You want to measure teacher performance from a sample of 5/30 students? Too noisy. Even 30 students is far from ideal. Testing every child is also a great way to prevent schools from "randomly" cherrypicking which students take the test.
Tehnix 13y ago
>I also think your "rather silly" comment is a bit flippant. For someone who is not bothered by tests this might seem reasonable. It's not like I love exams myself? This is simply something people should learn to deal with. >But for kids that are not ready, introducing them to high stress testing situations can scar them badly and impair their performance for life. If your kid gets scared for life by a test, then I'm afraid you simply haven't prepared them for life at all. Test might be frightening, I'll grant you that, but it's such a normal part of the education system and a lot of other things, that it simply is something one must learn to cope with in some way or another. There's often counseling or guidance you can get if you really have anxiety. >it means inevitably they will do very poorly on the test, which will feed back into their self esteem and have a high risk of setting back their educational progress. Then you deal with that by helping them as I mentioned in the last sentence in the paragraph before. It can also be an indicator that the child simply hasn't learned what it was expected to have learned, and therefore isn't ready to progress yet. Kids aren't fragile little things that'll break so easily. I'll stand on my earlier claim and would say "sparing" them of such things will do more harm to them later on in their life than it will do them good. You can't always hold you child in the hand, and if they never learn to deal with stressful situations it will have a much larger impact later on in life.