Our leaders, even President Obama, are paying attention to the rising volume of complaints about testing. Oh, dear, they say, there is too much testing. The opt out movement is growing. We must pledge to reduce the number of tests. We pledge! We promise! We won’t make 8-year-olds sit for seven or eight or nine hours of tests.
Sorry, I think it is time to turn up the volume. How about a five-year moratorium on standardized testing?
When they talk about fewer tests and better tests, it is just smoke in your eyes. As long as the tests are used to evaluate teachers and to rate students and label them, there are too many tests. Ask Arne if he will drop the federal imposition of test-based teacher evaluation. Ask him if he will drop VAM? If the answer is no, then opt out.
Don’t enrich Pearson. Enrich the curriculum with the arts.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think that former President Clinton had an interesting idea – testing three different times – once in elementary, once in middle and once in high school…I do think that we have to have some type of accountability, but that this seems like a reasonable compromise…
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What kind of accountability is completely erratic ? I have kids — we all do — that test well but are not good students, AND kids who are good, successful students, who know the material, who just don’t test well. Test-taking is a separate skill — tests have no place in a legitimate accountability system.
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Explore “accountability” more. How do you define accountability and to whom? That term is thrown about too often by independently wealthy billionaires and gerrymandered politicians.
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Agree. ‘Accountability’ is a sham. It says, “prove to me you’re not wasting my money”–just code for “we need to spend less money on overhead” [ed, infrastructure, you-name-it]. Action has already been taken [public ed budgets slashed everywhere you look]. The code is a sop to the public implying they’ll see the money back in less spent on gov [yuk yuk]. It’s an unfunded mandate of benefit only to pols getting their campaign chests loaded w/ed-corp loot: local taxes actually go up in order to purchase the ‘accountability’ paraphernalia [standards, test-prep matls, tests & the tech to do them online, extra admin to handle data collection/entry].
Reminds me of the annual note from mgt informing employees of yet another health-benefit ‘enhancement’ (read fine print: your premium & deductible up, your benefits down).
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Many of you have asked what I meant by accountability…I mean how do we know what our kids are learning? And no, just leaving it to the teachers telling us what they know isn’t always enough. Or how often do teachers say, “I taught that, but the kids don’t know it”…Shouldn’t we have some way to measure what is happening that is somewhat objective?
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jlsteach, the question you pose is should we have an objective way to measure learning. First, you have to define what it is you are measuring. What is learning? Assuming you can answer that and find consensus, then ask why measure learning. To rank students? Maybe to allocate who is defined as worthy of certain benefits while others are denied? Then, if agreement, move on to creating an objective measure. Who determines what is deemed objective and what “works”?
I do not buy into the hysteria of “schools are failing” and we have to do “something”. First, do no harm. This obsession with trying to measure the unmeasurable is demonizing teachers, hurting students, and undermining classrooms. The mistrust of teachers you mention seems too easy a justification for imposing a terrible, destructive testing regime. Yes, at some point we need to trust teachers and support them in the classroom.
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MathVale…So I have two sides to this perspective…As a parent of two kindergartners, I do worry about the emphasis on testing. In fact, at a recent open house, the school handed out tips for parents…one of which said parents should talk to their children about the importance of school AND TESTING (emphasis added)…it also had tips for days of the test (such as eating a good breakfast, relaxing students, etc). Just a week ago, my children told me about a test they took on the computer – how one time it was practice and the next time it was real….So, yes, this focus on testing did and does bother me…
However, that said, I know you and others feel that there is a mistrust of teachers. Some have mentioned that nearly 80-90 percent of teachers are rated effective of highly effective…you even say, “Yes, at some point we need to trust teachers and support them in the classroom.”…
In a utopia, I feel that we could do this…even in private schools, where I did teach for a few years, I feel that trusting teachers is more acceptable…Why? Because colleagues hold each other more accountable…Because teachers are not allowed to simply give A’s for effort and not learning…because in the private schools that I taught there was more collaboration involved.
Yes, public school teachers at times DO collaborate…but there are plenty others that also just close their doors, and want to be left alone. They believe they are helping their students by giving A’s for effort, and yet when those same students go to college, they struggle or are placed in remedial classes..
So, unfortunately since we are not in a utopia, I can’t just say, “Trust teachers” Do we need to support them? yes. Have the policies of over testing been harmful? I would say do. But does that mean we should do away with objective assessments? I would argue no.
I work in teacher education and my institution has used the edTPA as an objective measure…I have had students ask me why having their supervisor come and watch them teach shouldn’t be enough. Candidly, I have told them that while it is a data point, it can sometimes be skewed. Having an objective assessment either confirm or question subjective assessments helps improve the process.
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Accountability is reformer and politicians code for, “we don’t trust you to your professionalism; we don’t believe that you spend your time in front of students actually teaching them.”
Student “accountability” always seems to get ignored in this same discussion.
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jslteach
” Having an objective assessment either confirm or question subjective assessments helps improve the process.”
Aside from an objective test regarding content knowledge, what other objective assessment is used in edTPA?
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It does not require a utopia to trust teachers. I disagree with your mischaracterization of public school teachers. Many do collaborate, but planning time is eroded by state mandates and other non-instructional demands. U.S. teachers have much less planning and collaboration time than other nations. I have also worked private schools and found grade inflation from parental pressure a reality – particularly from influential parents and fire-at-will employment.
Whatever claimed objective measure you advocate fails if it is built on a premise of mistrust, punishment, and ignorance of the realities of a classroom. Good teachers will be labeled bad, bad teachers will game the system, nothing is accomplished. I already see failure in our state evaluation system. The test based, one size fits all, “objective” approach completely ignores the fact students are human, each classroom has different challenges, and the simpler the evaluation model, the more bias and error. People want simple numbers and a crank to turn to make everything better. They grow frustrated with teachers who bring the realities and complexities of education into the conversation.
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I have yet to see an objective measure. Rubrics are manipulated by administrators to reward their favorites and to punish those they dislike. The teacher in my school with the highest test scores did not receive Highly Effective and the merit pay bonus. The standardized tests are designed to stigmatize children living in poverty and designate their schools and teachers as failing.
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As a parent, and as a teacher, I am completely certain that standardized testing provides NO useful information. In fact, it is the kids who do well on standardized tests but that do not perform well in school that are the biggest worry. I can understand why you would want some kind of objective information — but standardized tests just can’t help you in this regard — they just can’t, despite the fact that you want them to.
So — you’ll have to do the hard (but rewarding) and uncertain (but more certain than standardized tests) work of collaborating with your children’s teachers — it’s a little more work, but it’s so much more worth it. My husband and I are both teachers and we KNOW how useless the testing is — we have formed relationships with our four children’s teachers over the years and it is fantastic. We know how our children are doing and how their lives are — no standardized testing needed.
Private schools are accountable to the parents — all in the complete absence of standardized testing — how do they do it ? Parents and teachers work together to raise children……[repeat: NO STANDARDIZED TESTS NEEDED]
One other thing to respond to you: your generalizations about private vs. public do not ring true for us. My husband teaches at a private school and has for many, many years. I teach in a public school and have for almost as many years (I stayed home with the kids too). There is NOT more collaboration in a private school, and teachers do NOT just give A’s — I don’t know people like that and never have.
If anything, public school teachers are better. And we are paid more, but that’s because we have harder jobs — not because of discipline, but because of all the crazy testing….because of the “high stakes”, districts give a zillion more tests to prepare kids for the “high stakes” and the process becomes unending for kids….
Still, the worst is the kids who do well on the standardized tests but can’t do a single constructed response problem. They’re marked as “learning” and if you are the teacher, people think “what do you mean that so and so is failing your class ?” But — these kids will not be able to function in college . . . .
This is where we are really lying to kids — doing well on the standardized tests does NOT mean that they really are learning, and conversely, not doing well on the standardized tests does NOT mean that they have not learned.
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Teacherjulie,
Perhaps the standardized test is the better gauge than school grades. Boys do systematically better on standardized tests than they should based on thier grades.
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I’m quite fond of a phrase Pasi Sahlberg uses, which he describes as a general Finnish educational aphorism: “Accountability is what you have left after you remove responsibility.”
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Talk, talk, talk. You’re right. How does the talk become action?
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Opting out of the 8-9 hours of testing while doing nothing about the scores of hours’ worth of test prep? Sad.
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My son’s been bringing home homework (which is annoying enough — I don’t feel like my 7-year-old’s developmental time is best spent, as his teacher puts it, “studying”) that are worksheets labeled “Test Prep” at the top of the page. The least they could do is cross that out with a Sharpie.
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I agree. They should just put “test prep” in the title of every class and be done with it.
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Go Math helpfully embeds the test prep right in the curriculum. What this means under the law isn’t clear. Where are the hordes of lawyers Bloomberg hired when you need them?
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NY’s ‘Common Core Implementation Reform Act’ limits test-prep to 2% of instructional time; this amounts to about three class periods per full year class. The act is not exactly clear as to which grade levels it applies to – and of course defining and enforcement are very dubious points of concern.
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The NYC DOE has been completely silent on this issue. Schools are budgeting for and purchasing test prep materials. Some are probably already using them; come January, all of them will be, unless someone intervenes.
Who do parents turn to if the law is being ignored? The police?
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NYSED. Its their law.
I did email then for some clarifications I did not get any reply.
The other option is to call the building principal and be a very strong and very vocal advocate for your child. Defining test-prep will become the a bone of contention. You can use the “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it” argument. That worked in the Supreme Court.
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BDB and Where In The World Is Carmen Farina could do a lot of good on this front. But it would take a lot of effort and guts. BDB is already dancing as fast as he can, and in any event is gutless. Farina is, well, she’s a highly experienced educator who’s totally changing the tone in the DOE, or something.
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What about the districts that in recent years have started giving “district common assessments” to prepare kids for the high stakes testing ? Is that “test prep” ? I would say yes, obviously. I would say at some schools the whole year is nothing but test prep. You’re right — that law isn’t going to change it.
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Carmen is an education reformer in sheep’s clothing.
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If there is no one left taking the tests, there will be no test prep.
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The tests are mandated by Federal law, and districts that don’t meet a minimum threshold of test-takers can have funding withheld.
The opt-out movement in New York is overwhelmingly based in districts with negligible numbers of poor and minority kids (by design). They have nothing to lose. Not the case for many of us in NYC DOE schools.
Test prep, on the other hand, is controlled at the district, school, and classroom level. Some states even have laws against it. Yet it endures.
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Not a single school district in NY has lost funding due to opt out numbers. None.
Opt outs alone however can keep a school on the FOCUS list.
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Not a single school district in NY has lost funding due to opt out numbers. Some district here (upstate) have had rate exceeding 40% and no financial penalty has been assessed.
However opt out numbers can keep a school on the FOCUS list.
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I thought it was based on a three-year rolling average. Are there districts already under 95% on that basis?
In any case, the places where opting out is most popular have the least to lose. Wealthy suburban districts might get a few thousand dollars in Federal funding. In Yonkers, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and New York (8% of the budget, or $2 billion), it’s a different story.
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They have no legal basis for withholding money. Parents opting their children out of testing is beyond the control of a school. parents do have a legal right to refuse the tests.
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Chiefs for Change are, um, following behind:
“Address the substandard nature and excessive use of many interim assessments, and the army of salespeople who pitch these products to our schools.”
They are OUTRAGED at the army of salespeople in our schools. All of a sudden 🙂
Aren’t these the ed reform leaders who are actually running states right now? They just now noticed they were testing too much? Why not a peep out of them before?
http://chiefsforchange.org/chiefs-for-change-statement-on-testing/
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In its, Testing Overload in America’s Schools report, the Center for American Progress finds that, “Despite the perception that federally mandated state testing is the root of the issue, districts require more tests than states…There is a culture of testing and test preparation in schools that does not put students first. While the actual time spent taking tests might be low, a culture has arisen in some states and districts that places a premium on testing over learning…… Urban high school students spend 266 percent more time taking district-level exams than their suburban counterparts.” Nonetheless, it goes on to recommend that, “States should implement the new Common Core-aligned assessments.”
Conspicuously absent is recognition of the cause and effect relationship between the high-stakes nature of state-mandated testing and the district culture of over-testing that the report appears to criticize. In the 1980’s I taught in a low performing elementary school in Brooklyn. School rankings were published in the city-wide newspapers and we lived in fear of finding ourselves at the bottom end of the list or being declared a “school under review.” Under this pressure, the principal mandated test preparation, including full-scale mock “city-wide” tests. Each year, we started these a bit earlier, in the fanciful hope that such practices would help improve scores. One year in March, after the third such practice test in as many months, the scores were going down not up. I said, “Can we stop this now, all we are doing is making kids and teacher more anxious.” We still held another practice test. I tell this, not to point out my prescience, but rather to highlight what people do under pressure. We all lived in fear of public humiliation and the principal lived in fear of the superintendent’s harsh judgment.
Since the 1980’s test pressures have been exacerbated exponentially. Until we eliminate the fear factor, school and district over-testing will not end.
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Good points. Sounds like Obama has no intention of decreasing the testing. He just wants to point the finger at states and districts for “overtesting” without admitting his own role therein.
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Yes, this is all analyzed correctly — and “test prep” absolutely makes kids more ready for the high stakes tests — that’s why districts do it. Some districts more than others — some do try to hold the line “do what’s best for kids” meaning “not test prep”. But we’re all fearful of the consequences of the high stakes tests — especially those of us who teach primarily disadvantaged students. As long as high stakes tests are considered “accountability”, poor kids will suffer. Middle class kids will still do OK enough to keep the massive test prep at bay — although some districts still are test-crazy, and those who can will home school or private school.
And since high stakes testing is, literally, ruining public schools, it is hard not to want a voucher — I pay a lot of taxes to support a school I wouldn’t want my kids to go to . . . . Why shouldn’t we have vouchers ? I mean this as a rhetorical question — I am a public school teacher and my children attend the district where I teach — which is minimally test crazy for the most part even though it’s urban — the suburban district where I live is test-crazy to the max (that’s why we don’t go there).
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“Accountability”
(Passing the biscuits)
It’s not the Fed
But local districts”
Reformers said
To pass the biscuits
“Our testing’s fine
As we would have it
They crossed the line
As is their habit”
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I just know it’s coming – and soon. In a few days, teachers will be blamed for insisting on all this test prep and testing. Wait for it.
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“Education Trust, a nonprofit working to close achievement gaps for disadvantaged students.” – Funny how the article makes EdTrust out to be a neutral observer. Can anyone be considered that if they take money from the likes of these orgs: http://www.edtrust.org/dc/about/funders
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Opting out isn’t always so easy. Considering how many test days there are in a year, not many parents can take off work that many days. If you send your kid to school, many schools will give your kid the test even if you’ve said you’re opting out (and some schools will give the test the day your kid comes back even if you keep them home). And even if they do recognize the right to opt out, not all schools provide alternative activities, so you’re sending your child in for a day of boredom.
And as Tim points out, that only addresses the test itself, not the test-prep. How in the world can parents opt their kids out of that?
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Diene is absolutely right. My school chases those kids down as if they were tom turkeys in firearms season.
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Repeat the “5-Year Moratorium on All Standardized Testing” demand—let’s try to make it go viral. Very strong, concrete, targeted at the problem…send it around and around, push it onto the public agenda.
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Can the moratorium and just send all Pearson testing docs straight to the crematorium!
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There were tests in the 60s and 70s when I took tests that showed what percentile all of us kids were in. What more it showed other than that, I don’t know. I know I wasn’t stupid, and I know I wasn’t a genius.
How about some of that ^ ^ testing, along with the usual end of chapter and pop quizzes instead of the punitive testing that tells students, parents and teachers zero but is somehow useful in assigning failing grades to schools and riffing teachers?
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Yes, Donna, I remember those days! Testing asseses a narrow skills set at best, but when it wasn’t the be-all and end-all, students did their best on it instead of resenting it and doing their worst, which of course is the case much of the time these days. Scores today tell us much less than they did 30 years ago.
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Yes, I know that it is possible to take standardized tests without all the prepping strum und drang because that’s how it was when I was a kid, and that’s how it is today at the elite private schools.
From Sidwell Friends, where 5-8 students take standardized tests over a three-day period:
” Parents will receive results by the first week of March. It is important to remember that standardized test scores are only one measure of a student’s academic profile, a snapshot if you will. A more complete and accurate picture emerges when the scores are combined with classwork, daily performance, regular assignments, projects, and tests. Still, the ERB/CTP’s can help parents and teachers understand more clearly and completely a child’s balance of strengths and needs. Teachers may review the scores in detail, looking for patterns that emerge from one year to the next, and then use that information to be more effective in the classroom.”
This is a better goal than eliminating standardized tests outright.
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Tim – I completely agree with you that standardized tests should not be the only measure…I think that a school like sidwell uses standardized tests the way they should be used…
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Standardized tests can be a diagnostic tool. But we’ve gone from diagnostic to prognostic, trying to predict the future worth of a teacher’s efforts, depending solely on flawed metrics and inaccurate models.
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Opted out my 12 year-old for all state tests this past spring. We can do it again in 8th grade. No such luck for my 11th grader. He’s taken most of the tests and End-of-Course exams (which I’m more comfortable with) and passed everything by 10th grade. I just got onto the bandwagon of the testing nightmare recently. I do believe because of this he can opt-out of Smarter Balanced and get a state diploma. It’s going to take entire schools of students to opt-out and continue to make a difference. What would help is practical strategies and tactics for mass organizing on a high school-by-high school level.
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“Don’t enrich Pearson”….. Don’t enrich Pearson’s 3rd largest shareholder, the government of Libya (Mother Jones Sept./Oct. 2014).
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“As long as the tests are used to evaluate teachers and to rate students and label them, there are too many tests”
This sentence is incredible.
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I am all for opting out. But not at the expense of other actions that are working. Some in the opt-out group may be pawns to Reformers who according to some state laws can take over a school and hand it over to privatizers if a school’s score falls below a certain level. So before one goes screaming to join opt-out, learn what the consequences will be, but most of all, see what action is happening in your state to get legislatures to overturn testing and work with those groups, not against them.
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They will reduce the number of tests by 50%, but not before the number of tests is doubled.
I think the 5 year moratorium is the only solution that will create a true change in testing culture.
Rather than opting out, how about if students and parents had to opt-in? Then schools wouldn’t be punished if a student didn’t take the test.
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Toxic testing is just a piece of the toxic reforms.
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I think we have to get ready for an America without public schools. It’s looking pretty grim, and they are going to go for it. This is why college is so expensive. The government is simply withdrawing all the funding. If you want an education for your kids, “pay for it.” They might keep junky, charter schools for awhile, but they will be so bad that many will go to private schools (which is what they want.) The government wants Americans to pay for their own schooling. Soon, there will soon be no more free, public schooling. Mark my words.
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You are right Mike and it will not take too much longer to declare, “Mission accomplished!”
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Yes, and I hate being right. I think it takes a certain kind of person to see the truth. You have to be a kind of depressed realist to put the pieces together. Most people (and teachers) just aren’t willing or able to see the truth. That is also why Chamberlain was unable to see Hitler clearly, and Churchill knew exactly what Hitler was.
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Opt-out as a teacher in a “Right-to-Work” state?
Absolutely NOT!
It is NOT COURAGEOUS for teachers
in collective bargaining states
or states with supportive governors
to take a “stand”
when it really
isn’t one.
It’s called “self-promotion”.
I am pro-teacher.
I am pro-student.
I am union.
I am also tired
of the cacophony
of self-accolades.
I have the UTMOST RESPECT
for those who had led the charge
but I think its time
to reflect
upon our “why”.
If we are not careful,
we will only reflect
what the “reformers”
project
except
we’ll be
a poorer image.
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Taking a stand against high stakes, punitive testing that is clearly harmful to students and the profession is all about “self-promotion”? Seriously? A cacophony of self accolades? Teachers as self-promoters because we might get a book deal or a spot on Letterman? Not sure if I am getting your point. We have been complying for 13 years now and its only gotten much worse. What is your suggestion for bring an end to the madness?
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How many have developed their own blogs (when we don’t have enough time to read what we have now), are promoting their own book sales, enjoy seeing their names in print … all those little things that are not “student-centered” but “self-centered”? People who once seemed quite sincere seem to have been bitten by the “popularity bug”. Evidence? Look over the past year to two years: Look at the photos of these self-promoters. They’re eyes once reflected passion; now, these individuals appear to be posing for all-too-familiar photo-ops. Don’t believe me? Go look- really. It is disheartening. There are people who pose as classroom teachers, when in fact they are instructional strategists or retired and will not suffer any personal loss but rather gain from actual classroom teachers who would be putting themselves on the line.
Teachers need to reclaim our profession. If others desire to assist, then stop writing and start DOING.
Those who can, TEACH.
Those who can’t, WRITE ABOUT IT.
Again, I write this with heaviness of heart and with the utmost respect for my fellow classroom K-12 teachers.
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Stop writing and start “DOING” what?
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Doing =
1) If you have the time,
go to states that are
“Right-to-Work” and
assist in getting the laws changed.
2) If you have gained $$$ from education blogging, publishing, speaking, and the like, help create a legal defense fund for teachers in less-than-friendly states who may follow the charge and “opt out”.
3) Promote good teaching practices that are being implemented by teachers every day. Do this in blogs, books, etc. This should be done in some proportion greater than rants that create a people who run off a proverbial professional cliff. A truth that has adulterated by exaggeration in any manner becomes a falsehood.
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Doing =
4) Mentoring new/young teachers in how to approach their administrators to obtain support for continued instruction during school-wide assessments.
5) Teach these same teachers about primary research methods and direct them to information resources to bolster their practice and advocacy.
6) If compelled to write, abstain from regurgitation and instead produce hard evidence (not purely anecdotal reports) and primary research that can be used to lobby legislatures to change education laws.
7) Choose to pursue a M.Ed. in Leadership/Administration and work to become the “breaker” between teachers, students and poorly run education systems: Become a principal.
I honestly don’t know how people who are constantly protesting, blogging, and the like manage to create new, interesting lessons for students. If we’re not careful, we could be accused of opposing the CCSS because we don’t want to redo our years-old lesson plans (tongue-in-cheek but hope it spurs to think).
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“Enrich the curriculum with the arts.”
Yes, yes, yes. And foreign language instruction from the beginning (not starting in middle school, as many districts do).
As for testing, I agree with the idea of holding teachers and students accountable, but more and more I’m seeing students at the university level who seem intent on giving “the right answer,” while seeming afraid of thinking critically for themselves, lest they get something wrong. This horrifies me, both ad a teacher (I teach writing and argument) and as a person.
We need to encourage students to think critically and explore ideas independently. Testing, at least as it’s currently being done, seems to do just the opposite.
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“Enrich the curriculum with the arts.”
Yes. And foreign language instruction from the beginning (not starting in middle school, as many districts do).
As for testing, I agree with the idea of holding teachers and students accountable, but more and more I’m seeing students at the university level who seem intent on giving “the right answer,” while seeming afraid of thinking critically for themselves, lest they get something wrong. This horrifies me, both as a teacher (I teach writing and argument) and as a person.
We need to encourage students to think critically and explore ideas independently. Testing, at least as it’s currently being done, seems to do just the opposite.
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A few thoughts to various pots – Christine – I completely agree with you…it’s a reason why I would argue that we should have tests, but should have fewer tests…furthermore, the tests need to find a way to be not just multiple choice find the right answer tests, but need to be assessments that encourage creativity.
To Choward who mentioned making parents accountable…not sure what more you can ask of a parent who works two jobs, who doesn’t speak English as their main language and are doing their best to send their children to school to have a better life for them.
TeacherJulie, I wanted to clarify my response – I think that you bring up some good points about grade inflation in private schools…but I think you missed one of my points…it was in public schools that I did see teachers simply handing out A’s for efforts.
NY Teacher, you asked me about how edTPA is objective…to me, it’s more objective since it is scored by an outside scorer (not a supervisor or someone that knows the teacher candidate very well)
Also, not sure who mentioned it, but I do agree that there are multiple parties that need to be accountable….and that includes students. During my final few years of teaching, I noticed a change in the students attitude – if a student did poorly on a test, often the blame was placed on the teacher and what the teacher did, even if the teacher did everything possible.
The fact is that student success in school is dependent upon numerous factors – teachers, parents, students, as well as other factors like socio-economic factors, etc. I am not sure what the ideal solution is, and I agree that there is an overabundance of testing right now…That said I think that some type of accountability is needed.
This is off-topic, but in relation to teacher observations, I wanted to share a column from Shira Fishman, an award winning teacher….she notes the benefits of having a system like IMPACT in DC…where she knew she would get support (as opposed to her first two years):
http://tntp.org/blog/post/teaching-before-and-after-impact
Is IMPACT perfect? No…I am not sure if I am a huge fan of it…but I think that Shira has a [point about why we need some type of accountability
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JLSteach, tests don’t encourage creativity. Do you have any examples?
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Until we start holding parents accountable, testing is irrelevant.
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How come these tests and their companies aren’t subject to reviews like any other product? Why don’t they get a Consumer Report or Yelp review?
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“Accountability”
Accountability is for students
For janitors and teachers
For those who flip the burgers
For those who clean the bleachers
For those who wash the dishes
For those who build the roads
For those who catch the fishes
And do the laundry loads
For those who build the houses
For those who fix the pipe
For those who catch the mouses
And pick the fruit when ripe
For those who do the weeding
For those who wash the dogs
For those who watch the speeding
For those who slop the hogs
It isn’t for the wealthy
Or those that they install
In LA and in DC
It’s not for them at all
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Imagine a world without standardized testing, one in which it was understood that the last thing that a complex, diverse, pluralistic society needs is to turn its children into standardized products.
I recently had a group of 10th graders prepare TED talks. They pursued topics personally engaging to them. And guess what? They did brilliant work because they were thinking, hard, about subjects that mattered to them. And their enthusiasm was contagious, and the other kids learned from their peers’ presentations. And, yes, they honed presentation skills, and I was able to use standardized rubrics to evaluate their written notes and slides and the verbal and nonverbal aspects of their delivery. But what made this assignment work was that each kid was the locus of control of his or her learning.
My most important evaluation criterion is that the kids were not, under any circumstances, to bore their peers to death.
We should be in the business of nurturing confident, self-motivated, independent learners and thinkers.
The medium is the message. And what is the message of this medium, the standardized test? It’s “Bow down before the extrinsic motivator.”
But, of course, “Extrinsic motivator” is an oxymoron.
No child ever had his or her life transformed by prepping for a standardized test.
Every good teacher knows this.
A lot of educrats have yet to learn this elementary truth. Those educrats and politicians who haven’t learn this need remediation.
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cx: No child ever had his or her life POSITIVELY transformed by prepping for a standardized test.
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Bob,
I don’t think that is coorect. Take the Putnam exam. Do you think students are not positively impacted by studying for it?
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Let me put it this way, TE. Many millions of students have learned from test prep that learning is NOT intrinsically rewarding.
Not exactly the message we should be teaching, but this is, in fact, what they are learning in the test prep factories that were once our public schools.
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And, of course, the Putnam exam is a very special case, involving kids who are already intrinsically motivated.
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Bob,
Is the Putnam exam not a standardized exam? Some years the median score is zero. Perhaps the students who take the exam DO NOT COUNT. After all you said NO CHILD is positively transformed by prepping for a standardized exam.
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Yes, TE. You are right. I support, btw, making standardized exams a voluntary option for students and their parents.
And eliminating all mandatory standardized examinations in K-12.
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Thank God for those teachers who continue to do real teaching DESPITE the testing culture.
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Let’s add tha AMC 10, AMC 12, AIME, USAMO. All terrible for students, right?
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give it a break, TE
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Bob,
They are all standardized tests.
I think the main virtue of requiring standardized tests is that they give someone outside the school a way to understand what is happening inside the school. What percentage of the graduates from high school A can read at the ninth grade level? Are the top seven percent of graduates from high school B well prepared to attend UT at Austin?
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Oh, if the world and students and minds were so simple, TE.
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Not simple, yet we seem to think that graduating from high school is significant. What does high school graduation signify?
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Much more than can be summed up in some pathetic score, TE. That’s the point.
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My son is currently taking a required class this semester. If he does not pass the class by getting sufficiently high scores on the exams he will not graduate. If he gets sufficiently high scores on the exam he will graduate. Do those exam scores count among the pathetic scores?
Poster Lloyd, in another thread, makes the claim that Texas requires all high school graduates to be able to read at least at the fourth grade level. Is that, among those other things, what high school graduation signifies?
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I gather that you have all the answers to all the questions, TE, so enjoy having conversations about these matters with yourself. I’m done.
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Bob,
I certainly don’t have all the answers. That is why I don’t use words like pathetic to describe anything on this blog. That is why I advocate for the use of the word “some” when folks make claims here.
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I would like to completely eliminate standardized testing, as I think most teachers would. However, in the real world, we should know that will never happen. Public schools, being paid for with taxpayer money, will always be affected by politics. And politicians will want to see “results”.
So, in order to work for a realistically better situation, not realistic to ask for no standardized testing, but to greatly reduce it, reduce the high stakes aspects of it, no VAM, no evaluation nor pay based on testing, etc, etc.
I think that could be a more realistic goal than asking to eliminate standardized testing entirely, which is not likely to ever happen.
Very interesting though, what just occurred in a Colorado school district:
http://www.koaa.com/news/unprecedented-move-d-11-board-votes-yes-on-plan-to-opt-out-of-standardized-testing/
That is a very courageous school board. 🙂
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