This writer, a parent in New York, wonders why so much time is set aside for testing.
The hours spent testing should be devoted to the arts, reading, play, a million other things.
Our top officials think it doesn’t matter because in many or most cases, it doesn’t affect their children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In Ohio, each test is allotted a 2.5 hour time slot. Most students finish prior to 1.5 hours.
I believe that is going to change very soon for your schools, as it is for mine. the old tests is reasonable (though not very reasonable in the amount of time spent getting reading for it…trust me as a teacher we spend some time every day on it). The new tests for common core, Parcc, is going to take quite a bit longer and take place 2-4 times a year. Special Ed student test more often…sadly.
Why so much time spent testing?
Because the tests are the curriculum, one that is a form of operant conditioning, for students and teachers, in passivity, obedience, and narrowing of educational/life focus.
Despite the lies of so-called reformers, the overwhelming majority of current and future jobs – for those fortunate enough to have them – do not require a college education, but they do require high tolerance for tedium, powerlessness, lack of autonomy, and managerial surveillance.
The tests, while also a weapon against teachers and neighborhood public schools, are about inculcating habits of mind for other people’s children, so they will be compliant debt serfs.
AMEN and thank you. It’s the numbing of us as citizens. It’s about citizens having no authority over the politicians who think they are not beholden to the voters. It is also because we have a lousy election system where money RULES. Follow the money…now and think…where will the money eventually land and in whose pockets.
One feature of high stakes tests that is often missed is how similar they are from year to year. If you want scores to be as high as possible, you work that to your advantage by drilling not only the content but the structure of the test, the types of questions, the ways in which information is solicited, and the arbitrary limits on how deep understanding must go to succeed. A true educational assessment has to include some novelty to make sure that the practice effect doesn’t inflate scores. We’re chasing as much practice effect as we can get, and all that’s required for that is time spent in training. Why spend time trying to learn more or better when you can just do some higher level rote learning? Any business would be stupid to spend more resources to deliver a superior product for no additional financial gain. Whether people agree or disagree philosophically with the notion that schools ought to operate like businesses, they’re being forced into that kind of decision.
Don’t forget all the time and money spent on pre-testing, quarterly tests and lastly the post-test.
Big pharma should be coming out with a new drug soon specifically meant to treat test anxiety disorder (of course it’s the kid with a disorder and not the test itself). A good name for the drug could be Testeez®. Or maybe Trinobubolphyl. I can see the commercials on tv now. “If your kid doesn’t have the testes, try Testeez”….also available for parents Rephormapil to treat sudden or sustained urges to question standardized tests and their inappropriate uses.
Testeez? LMAO!
I am bored. What can i say. 🙂
Forget about the hours needed to take all the tests. . . What about all the time needed in and outside of school to prepare for the tests?
AIM: To make students and teachers NOT think or question the status quo and authority. To run this country (the so-called FREE and DEMOCRATIC one), takes a lot of deceit and money. This country has run amok.
For those of you who have not seen this statement on testing and children, go to the link and click on the IMAGE to ENLARGE and read it:
http://thetruthoneducationreform.blogspot.com/2012/12/blog-post.html?view=snapshot
If you are fighting against standardized testing the way its implemented now, feel free to lift the image and incorporate into your own literature anywhere!
I teach fourth grade in a Philadelphia public school. Though the school has made AYP for the past two years, most of the students are not performing at grade level in math or reading. So, at this school, like most urban schools, the standardized tests have become our god, informing every aspect of our teaching. For instance I am required to teach reading and math only. If I submit lesson plans with science or social studies or something else, I am out of compliance and will be told to get back into compliance. The principal is a competent and supportive school leader who is simply navigating the academic culture that has developed since NCLB and high stakes testing began. From the district, to the region, to the school, and finally the classroom, every one is under intense pressure to get the test scores up. From day one we are focused on teaching test taking skills. ( and this is in a context where teacher evaluation is not yet tied to the test scores. )
Why is it so difficult to get the students to perform better? I could write a five page blog describing the actual challenges our children contend with that profoundly effect every aspect of their lives, which also happens to include their school experience.
After more than a decade of “academic improvements” and increased oversight and “support”, the student population that has struggled the most, still struggles. Isn’t it obvious by now that we are not addressing the real problems, but are persistently dealing with the symptoms? Where is the real support for our children?
“The principal is a competent and supportive school leader who is simply navigating the academic culture. . . ”
Equine excrement. He obviously is not competent if he is forcing this crap on the teachers and, more importantly, the students. He knows who butters his bread and he is willing to dirty his nose to kiss their arses.
He is a she, and of the six principals I have worked for, clearly the most competent. This is probably because she was a classroom teacher for many years before becoming a principal.
You seem to take an absolutist stand, as if this principal was some kind of villain who created the high stakes testing world and is now responsible for stopping it. She isn’t “forcing any crap on her teachers…” she is middle management, subject to evaluation, and navigating the challenges of her job, in this current school reform culture, in the same way that I ,as a teacher, navigate the “crap” I have to deal with. (Like teaching to, and administering these high stakes tests.) To her credit, she is far more competent and humane about it than most.
My main point was, in agreement with the original comment, that high stakes testing has utterly reduced the teaching and learning in my class, while the real challenges my students deal with are hardly even addressed.
Reblogged this on 70jamsession.