Here is one:
“Scientifically Tested Tests,” by Susan Engel (Op-Ed, Sept. 20), is a breath of fresh air. We have better, more humanistic and authentic ways to judge students’ learning rather than succumbing to “laboring once again in the shadow of standardized tests.”
Prospective teachers coming out of many teacher education programs are familiar with the range of assessments in students’ learning. The larger pragmatic ”” and moral ”” issue is: Even when they know what works well for student learning and assessment, what do they do in the face of the tremendous pressure to teach to the test?
Especially with our current economic woes, it is tough for me to tell them to give up their jobs and take the moral high road.
We have created a culture of fear, and we wind up schooling ”” standardizing ”” students, not truly educating them.
If we want an educated American citizenry, we need to summon our collective moral courage, if not outrage, in the face of the dubious value of standardized testing.
John Gabriel,Chicago
There’s nothing inherently wrong with “teaching to the test” if the test is a good one–fairly representative of what students should know. The teachers/teachers’ unions have done their best to demonize standardized tests (too many media/parents/etc buy into this complaint), but this is often motivated by a desire to be free from accountability, free to “have fun” with the kids and spend their time “building self-esteem.” The problem is never “teaching to a test”. Consider, any teacher, at any level, in any context, will have a minimum standard for what students should learn in their class, and will naturally be teaching to that standard (whether personal or imposed) throughout the class, and will expect students to communicate their grasp of the material (some “test” however defined). The resentment is that they don’t get to teach to personal standards and personal evaluations rather than imposed ones.
The testing the NYT cited seems OK, it still is testing and it is no doubt working because there is local ownership of the testing standards, unlike most schools/districts that feel like outsiders are imposing alien standards (and accountability). I have no trouble with motivated schools providing other tests (and of course, teaching to them!). The rub is that where other tests are permitted, it should be ensured that students are learning basics and not falling behind peers–which brings us back to standards.
We keep asking and don’t get an answer. “What is wrong with teaching to the test?” If our goal is to teach our children to read, then why can’t we test their reading skills?
I know that the teachers in that school district in Mass. wanted to incorporate discussion of racism in their algebra classes. So, by forcing them to “teach to the test” we can at least try to keep a lid on this nonsense. I want my kids to know how to do algebra!
I pay keen attention to how my medical student do on their “STEP exams”. I expect them to hit above the median and am distressed if they do not. This measures their medical knowledge, but does not measure their ability to perform a differential diagnosis or to examine patients. I ALSO test these parameters myself (and so does the university). There is nothing wrong with BOTH teaching to the test, AS WELL as teaching the other things that are important. However a student (however good at physican examination or compassionate) who does not have the medical knowledge base of his peers needs to learn it. Anything less is a disservice to him and to his patients.
I think if teachers focused on teaching student what they should be learning, instead of trying to “teach to the test” the students would do better on the tests.
Education is apparently the only profession in which employee performance can’t be measured. The problem with government in general and education in particular is you can’t get rid of the bottom 10% of employees like most well run businesses do. If we started doing that most of the problems with education would vanish overnight. And instead of sending billions of dollars to Washington every year to encourage and foster the current failed system, we need to abolish the Deaprtment of Education, keep the money at home, and let our local school boards determine how we will educate our children. I would rather have a local school board member, whose phone number and address I can get, setting cirriculum than some mindless, faceless federal employee in a gray cubicle determinig the fate of America’s children.
There are few failing schools where [b]parents[/b] demand of their children respect for the educational process and regularly check their homework, behavior, and performance.
“There are few failing schools where parents demand of their children respect for the educational process and regularly check their homework, behavior, and performance”
I disagree. Failing schools (private and public) occur when teachers cannot be fired. I was on the school board of a catholic school that was funded by the parishes in the area. It looked really good on paper with all the kids who graduated going to college and doing well on SATs. When my kids were there, however, I found that any child who failed to understand material was immediately given a label of ADHD, and was shipped first to a shrink and then to the public school.
In 11 grade my oldest was in Honors English. The tests (on such subjects as Beowulf) was on trivia such as “what color was the robe that the wife wore?” It was designed to have people fail. I reviewed the materials and rapidly determined that I would have failed. I therefore arranged to have her take English at the local university (she passed the entrance exam) but the schol refused to permit this. So I had her take both the Freshman comp at the University, and the non-Honors English in the school (pointing out very politely that obviously Honors English was beyond her, look at her grades). This was permitted (grudgingly after an attempt was made to get me to drop Freshman comp (which I refused on the basis of “she needs as much practice as she can get, just look at her grades). She was given automatic “Fs for all the work in nonHonors English (because “she didnt turn it in, even though she wasn’t in the course at the time) and her As in the latter aspect of the semester dragged her grade for the semester up to a D. We did not complain. Later, in nonHonors English, after little happened for 2 months, she was given the following homework for a 2 week period
10 original poems (1 a day for 2 weeks)
a 12 page research paper
an oral presentation
(THis was in addition to the biweekly Advanced reader book with test on book, the weekly in class British literature material (and tests) and the weekly grammer exercises (on computer)
This was considerably more than was expected in her Freshman Comp class in college. I later found out that the reason it was all done as a dump in 2 weeks was because that was when education students showed up to “teach the class” and this allowed them to have materials for their “portfolio”.
Some 40% of the class failed. My kid did not, and I was pretty pleased with that. Over the summer, I arranged for her to complete the requirements for an on-line high school senior year, and enrolled her in university in fall instead of sending her back for senior high school year. Currently she is a junior in college and is very glad to have skipped senior high school year.
Even though I was a tithe paying parish member (20,000/year) and even though I was on the school board, and even though I most certainly checked homework and even though we NEVER complained about the teachers (knowing that this would result in immediate retaliation) the school was CERTAINLY failing my child. It was not possible to do anything to remediate the situation, because the priests run the school boards and refuse to listen to any complaints about the teachers.
I later found out that my mistake was that I did not go, humbly to the teacher and say “Oh Ms. X, I’m so worried about my daughter. What can we do to help her in English?” I later found out that those who did were permitted to pay the teachers privately to “tutor” their child. If they did, they got a “study sheet” which had the test on it, and they also got a heads up on the poems and papers so it didn’t need to be done in a 2 week period. Personally I consider this a bribe.
So yes. There are failing schools. Any school where the teacher cannot be fired for poor performance is at risk for failure. That includes both public schoools and private schools.
English, and I simultaneously arranged for her to take EI later found out that the “correct” thing to do was to ask for “tu
Clueless,
Clearly, there are bad teachers and dysfunctional school systems. Your experience is a sad and compelling case on a parent’s best efforts going nowhere through every fault of the school itself. I will say that I believe that it is rare among the schools we generally call “failing.”
My point is the tedium of watching a cultural dance around ever implicating parents because those parents are voters. Politicians won’t do it, and, of course, that parents themselves won’t do it.
We get these TV programs on “failing schools” that never, ever address the elephant in the living room — the tragic and chaotic homes from which so many of these problem students come and that tax the system beyond its capacity to address.
I’m all for firing incompetent teachers. One cannot, however, fire incompetent parents, and some sympathy is order for educators who have been turned into social workers.
Schools were not always failing to teach students, so what has changed since that time? If we can reverse or repeal the changes made since then we should see performance return to previous levels of excellence.
If a student is disruptive, expel them or send them to a reform school. If a student continues to be a discipline problem, then send them to juvenile detention where they will no longer be able to drag down all the rest of the kids that want to learn. I strongly suspect that the educational process will then succeed.
I don’t have a particular dog in this fight since we home school our children to avoid the whole system. When I see the kids of today I am torn between sadness that our system is failing so badly, and happiness that my kids excel far beyond their peers. I believe that they will crush their competition when they begin to compete in the job market.
What mostly changed was litigation, which has made it impossible to discipline students. Previously if a kid was disrespectful or even chewed gum in class he could expect to spend recess writing lines. If he failed to do his homework he would be kept in after school. If he was disruptive he could expect a caning. Now, if a child behaves badly, the teacher is unable to correct him other than by yelling at him. This makes all the other kids act out also, so the kid is perfectly justified when the teacher then sends him to the principal for more “talking to” as by that time everybody else is doing it too. It is not possible to take away recess, let alone issue a paddling, because any disruptive kid, ipsofacto becomes saddled with a “learning disability” or “psychological problem’ or something, and the “cruel teacher” is beating up the poor disabled child.
We need school choice. Both the parents and the teachers should get to choose. If a kid acts out in a regular classroom his parents need to be able to choose a school that includes a lot more exercise, and permits other forms of discipline (pushups, walking tours, or corporal punishment). If a kid is distracted by the opposite sex his parents need to be able to send him/her to a single sex school. If a kid is way behind on reading, the parents need to be able to choose a school that tutors reading. That is what wealthy parents do. They select private schools on the basis of their children’s needs. Ordinary parents should have the same priviledge