4 ms·

Ironically, standardised testing is a prime example of a system choosing to solve an easy problem instead of the problem it has. Hard question: are our schools

by zb 12y ago

Ironically, standardised testing is a prime example of a system choosing to solve an easy problem instead of the problem it has. Hard question: are our schools meeting the educational needs of their pupils and society? Easy question: did enough pupils fill in enough of the right circles on this test for us all to not get fired next year? If you exchanged test scores for production figures and teachers for farmers, this article could be a story directly out of Soviet agriculture in the collectivisation era. I'm finding it highly entertaining to watch you, of all people, defending this system so vehemently.

sp332 12y ago
If you don't have standardized testing, how do you know if the students are being educated? More specifically, how do you identify schools that need help and focus resources effectively?
- amputect 12y ago
  The problem is that standardized testing doesn't tell you if students are being educated, it tells you if students are passing standardized tests, which is a different problem that, at best, only partially overlaps with the actual question. If you over-optimize for standardized testing, you end up under-optimizing for actual education. I had to take the WASL as part of my graduation from high school, back in 2003. Forcing this requirement on schools did not improve our education, it degraded it. Instead of actually reading two or three good books in our english class, we studied cliff notes of 15 or so works, so we could write shallow summaries of "key themes" for the test, for whichever books actually appeared on it. Instead of going forward with trigonometry in math, we went over estimation and hammered on very basic geometry problems. My government class stopped covering its subject matter entirely, and we studied analogies and reading comprehension, because government wasn't on the WASL (at the time; it might be now). The net effect was that as a class we did really well on that test, but our actual education suffered. That's what standardized testing gets you.
  - sp332 12y ago
    The problem is that standardized testing doesn't tell you if students are being educated But what will?
    - dalke 12y ago
      I program for a living, but I've not taken any programming tests since I was in school. How do people know that I'm doing a good job without my taking a standardized test? The answer is one we've had for a long time - talk with the teachers. Teachers are professionals, paid to educated children and evaluate what needs to be improved. We developed normal schools to train people how to be teachers. These became known as teachers' colleges, and then became education programs in a university. In addition to continuing education programs and peer development, we also have oversight programs in place, including the department head, principal, and local school board. Among other things, these are supposed to help identify teaching problems and remedy them. Unfortunately, management is both support and punishment, which can lead to power imbalance where a school board member says "My nephew must be on the football team or else you won't get a raise next year!" One way to limit this power imbalance is to set up a teacher union or tenure system. Another is for additional community oversight, which may include the parent-teacher organizations like the PTA. Therefore, your question sounds like you trust the authors of standardized tests (who are often in for-profit companies that sell the tests, sell standards, and sell text books which match the standards) more than you trust teachers or the professional education system. Why is that, do you think?
      - sp332 12y ago
        Honestly, I have no idea if you're doing a good job. At least (as far as I know) you're not asking for federal funding for your job. Well, I don't have to trust the authors since I can see and evaluate the test for myself. I can't really evaluate every teacher and analyze the pressures on them.
        dalke 12y ago
        Education is primarily state funded, not federal. I believe federal funding is only 10% of the local school budget, and includes meal assistance and other things which aren't directly tied to a teaching position. In any case, your original question is also valid for private schools - how do the parents of private school students know if their children are being educated or if the schools need help? How does the bishop overseeing several Catholic schools do the same? Therefore, why is "federal funding" relevant to the topic? As I understand it, you don't have access to the questions and answers for the high stakes tests, so you can't evaluate them. I can be proven wrong. Can you show me the complete set of questions for a state test from last spring? I looked for Florida, and only found FCAT tests from 2005/2006 at http://fcat.fldoe.org/fcatrelease.asp http://fcat.fldoe.org/fcatrelease.asp . I could not find FCAT 2 questions from 2013 or 2014, though I did find the scores from http://fcat.fldoe.org/fcat2/ http://fcat.fldoe.org/fcat2/ . This is what I expected, because some of the questions are potential questions for future tests, and exist to calibrate the tests. If the questions and answers are published, then they can't be used that way. Which suggests that you don't know what you're talking about, as regards high stakes testing, or that there are some states where all of the tests are published, so that people like you can review them. Which tests are you thinking of? If I understand you correctly, you are satisfied if you can "see and evaluate the test." Wouldn't you be similarly satisfied if you could "see and evaluate" all of the tests from each teacher at every school? Since that seems a lot cheaper and easier to do than set up high-stakes testing across the country.
- zb 12y ago
  Nobody said anything about not having standardised testing. The problem here is high-stakes standardised testing. You can know stuff about a system that you can't measure completely (i.e. any system) by sampling it - you'll get a lot of noise and even some systematic biases, but as long as you maintain an awareness of that you will know something. The problem comes when you want to control things. If you create a feedback loop by attaching strong incentives to the measures you are using to acquire knowledge, then you end up with neither control nor knowledge. You're no longer taking a representative sample, just measuring the gain of your feedback loop. And if you apply the incentives at a granularity of measurement such that noise overwhelms the signal (by a factor somewhere between 7 and 100, according to the article)...

by zb 12y ago

sp332 12y ago

If you don't have standardized testing, how do you know if the students are being educated? More specifically, how do you identify schools that need help and focus resources effectively?

amputect 12y ago
The problem is that standardized testing doesn't tell you if students are being educated, it tells you if students are passing standardized tests, which is a different problem that, at best, only partially overlaps with the actual question. If you over-optimize for standardized testing, you end up under-optimizing for actual education. I had to take the WASL as part of my graduation from high school, back in 2003. Forcing this requirement on schools did not improve our education, it degraded it. Instead of actually reading two or three good books in our english class, we studied cliff notes of 15 or so works, so we could write shallow summaries of "key themes" for the test, for whichever books actually appeared on it. Instead of going forward with trigonometry in math, we went over estimation and hammered on very basic geometry problems. My government class stopped covering its subject matter entirely, and we studied analogies and reading comprehension, because government wasn't on the WASL (at the time; it might be now). The net effect was that as a class we did really well on that test, but our actual education suffered. That's what standardized testing gets you.
- sp332 12y ago
  The problem is that standardized testing doesn't tell you if students are being educated But what will?
  - dalke 12y ago
    I program for a living, but I've not taken any programming tests since I was in school. How do people know that I'm doing a good job without my taking a standardized test? The answer is one we've had for a long time - talk with the teachers. Teachers are professionals, paid to educated children and evaluate what needs to be improved. We developed normal schools to train people how to be teachers. These became known as teachers' colleges, and then became education programs in a university. In addition to continuing education programs and peer development, we also have oversight programs in place, including the department head, principal, and local school board. Among other things, these are supposed to help identify teaching problems and remedy them. Unfortunately, management is both support and punishment, which can lead to power imbalance where a school board member says "My nephew must be on the football team or else you won't get a raise next year!" One way to limit this power imbalance is to set up a teacher union or tenure system. Another is for additional community oversight, which may include the parent-teacher organizations like the PTA. Therefore, your question sounds like you trust the authors of standardized tests (who are often in for-profit companies that sell the tests, sell standards, and sell text books which match the standards) more than you trust teachers or the professional education system. Why is that, do you think?
    - sp332 12y ago
      Honestly, I have no idea if you're doing a good job. At least (as far as I know) you're not asking for federal funding for your job. Well, I don't have to trust the authors since I can see and evaluate the test for myself. I can't really evaluate every teacher and analyze the pressures on them.
      - dalke 12y ago
        Education is primarily state funded, not federal. I believe federal funding is only 10% of the local school budget, and includes meal assistance and other things which aren't directly tied to a teaching position. In any case, your original question is also valid for private schools - how do the parents of private school students know if their children are being educated or if the schools need help? How does the bishop overseeing several Catholic schools do the same? Therefore, why is "federal funding" relevant to the topic? As I understand it, you don't have access to the questions and answers for the high stakes tests, so you can't evaluate them. I can be proven wrong. Can you show me the complete set of questions for a state test from last spring? I looked for Florida, and only found FCAT tests from 2005/2006 at http://fcat.fldoe.org/fcatrelease.asp http://fcat.fldoe.org/fcatrelease.asp . I could not find FCAT 2 questions from 2013 or 2014, though I did find the scores from http://fcat.fldoe.org/fcat2/ http://fcat.fldoe.org/fcat2/ . This is what I expected, because some of the questions are potential questions for future tests, and exist to calibrate the tests. If the questions and answers are published, then they can't be used that way. Which suggests that you don't know what you're talking about, as regards high stakes testing, or that there are some states where all of the tests are published, so that people like you can review them. Which tests are you thinking of? If I understand you correctly, you are satisfied if you can "see and evaluate the test." Wouldn't you be similarly satisfied if you could "see and evaluate" all of the tests from each teacher at every school? Since that seems a lot cheaper and easier to do than set up high-stakes testing across the country.
zb 12y ago
Nobody said anything about not having standardised testing. The problem here is high-stakes standardised testing. You can know stuff about a system that you can't measure completely (i.e. any system) by sampling it - you'll get a lot of noise and even some systematic biases, but as long as you maintain an awareness of that you will know something. The problem comes when you want to control things. If you create a feedback loop by attaching strong incentives to the measures you are using to acquire knowledge, then you end up with neither control nor knowledge. You're no longer taking a representative sample, just measuring the gain of your feedback loop. And if you apply the incentives at a granularity of measurement such that noise overwhelms the signal (by a factor somewhere between 7 and 100, according to the article)...