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> If "teaching to the test" increases student knowledge then it's a good thing. If burning someone alive cures them of AIDS, then it's a good thing. Rote memo

> If "teaching to the test" increases student knowledge then it's a good thing. If burning someone alive cures them of AIDS, then it's a good thing. Rote memorization might (temporarily) increase the number of facts in your head. It will not make you an intelligent and productive individual. Instead, it will train you to be dependent on other people to give you information, rather than finding or inferring it for yourself. > I have no idea why you believe measuring outputs is a "weapon against public education". I explained that already, but you chose to ignore it as inconvenient to your radical ideology. > * And your critique that "there's no allowance for poor areas, non-English-speaking areas, or special-needs kids" is simply ignorant.* Since I've seen the devastating effects of NCLB and similar initiatives, I'm quite confident in my critique. Since I've seen many of your posts on HN, I'm equally confident that your extreme ideology will not change, so this will be my one and only reply to you.

Tehnix 13y ago
>Rote memorization might (temporarily) increase the number of facts in your head. It will not make you an intelligent and productive individual. Instead, it will train you to be dependent on other people to give you information, rather than finding or inferring it for yourself. Ignoring your completely dissimilar analogy, from what I saw from the tests that yummyfajitas linked, these are not matters of simple memorization, but actually knowing how to apply knowledge to an area. If the student passes that test, then one can assume they have learned what the test presumed to have been taught beforehand. It's not a simple matter of listing things, but about applying methods to cases.
- nknighthb 13y ago
  They teach the very specific facts and steps necessary to correctly answer the very narrow range of questions they know will be on the tests. They do not teach critical thinking, research skills, or fundamental concepts. Doing so would risk an unacceptably high failure rate. They must drill the precise information necessary to pass the test into every student, no matter their relative intelligence, language skills, or medical conditions, because it would be catastrophic to their careers to have students fail. For seven hours each day, children in need of everything from individualized, therapist-aided teaching methods to nothing more than "here's a library, go nuts" are packed into overcrowded classrooms and drilled on the same crap. Look at that Grade 8 New York test. Realize that is being given to 12-13 year olds. Realize I could have gotten 80% of it right in 4th grade at a school where a few slower kids didn't risk the career of their teacher. This is what standardized testing does.

Tehnix 13y ago

>Rote memorization might (temporarily) increase the number of facts in your head. It will not make you an intelligent and productive individual. Instead, it will train you to be dependent on other people to give you information, rather than finding or inferring it for yourself. Ignoring your completely dissimilar analogy, from what I saw from the tests that yummyfajitas linked, these are not matters of simple memorization, but actually knowing how to apply knowledge to an area. If the student passes that test, then one can assume they have learned what the test presumed to have been taught beforehand. It's not a simple matter of listing things, but about applying methods to cases.

nknighthb 13y ago
They teach the very specific facts and steps necessary to correctly answer the very narrow range of questions they know will be on the tests. They do not teach critical thinking, research skills, or fundamental concepts. Doing so would risk an unacceptably high failure rate. They must drill the precise information necessary to pass the test into every student, no matter their relative intelligence, language skills, or medical conditions, because it would be catastrophic to their careers to have students fail. For seven hours each day, children in need of everything from individualized, therapist-aided teaching methods to nothing more than "here's a library, go nuts" are packed into overcrowded classrooms and drilled on the same crap. Look at that Grade 8 New York test. Realize that is being given to 12-13 year olds. Realize I could have gotten 80% of it right in 4th grade at a school where a few slower kids didn't risk the career of their teacher. This is what standardized testing does.