Test scores vs learning; who wins in that battle?

[LWolf]

I posted this article in health,ed,etc., but it was powerful enough that I thought it should get a wider audience. See NCLB/high-stakes testing from a teacher's perspective. Ever wanted to know what teachers really talk about? What really goes on in those interminable staff meetings? What we're really complaining about? This article opens the door to you. It showcases the classroom, the staff lounge, and the staff meeting. The part I snipped is from a staff meeting. I'm an elementary school teacher. The author is a former high school teacher, now teaching 8th grade in a private school at the other end of the country. But his journey mirrors my own, into, and perhaps out of, the profession. It's worth reading the whole thing. There's much more meat than I could snip.

The Best Answer
Under pressure to improve his students' Standards of Learning scores, a Virginia teacher decides to: (a) End free reading time; (b) Give more practice tests; or (c) Quit the public schools
By Emmet Rosenfeld
Sunday, February 22, 2004; Page W20

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48919-2004Feb17.html

<snip>

"What's SBI training?" someone shouted.

"Standards-based instruction," she began. "Remember, that's the class you all have to take with me and do a portfolio -- ." There was a spray of laughter, and she realized that the questioner, along with every teacher in the room, was acutely aware that in addition to our normal teaching and extracurricular load, we were required to take a 16-hour course to create a unit that was "backwards designed" from the SOLs. In other words, craft specific lessons to hammer home the factoids for which our kids would soon be held unequivocally accountable.

Finally, it was time for the main attraction. The principal, Cathy Crocker, stepped to the dais, a Midwesterner whose indefatigable cheer belied the pressure she was under to raise our school's test scores. She thanked us for our efforts, describing her joy at seeing such caring, dedicated professionals working so hard with students. My spider sense started tingling. I should have known what was coming as soon as I saw the chicken wings. We had to raise our scores, she told us.

One way to do that, she said, was "bell-to-bell teaching": Every child's fanny in a seat from the moment the bell rings until the end of class 90 minutes later. I wondered if the controlled chaos of the writers' workshop in my room qualified as bell-to-bell teaching.

"And another thing: no hobby teaching," she said. I had never heard the phrase in my professional training, but I could tell it was something that only dilettantes would dare while on the county's clock. No hobby teaching, I wrote in my notes and underlined it. Did free-choice reading count as a hobby?

[boobooday]

1. Standardized tests are the worst thing to happen to education

They are demoralizing for students and teachers alike.

They discourage critical thinking.

They "standardize" every curriculum, taking teachers and principals and the communty out of the decision-making process for their schools.

They make our schools into little sausage factories, turning out little standardized citizens who do what they are told.

Now you understand the right-wing educational agenda.

Not enlightenment, but enslavement.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[LWolf]

6. It is my fervent hope that

all of America will open their eyes to the right-wing educational agenda and put it to rest before it destroys us.

[skippysmom]

2. Thanks for posting this

What a sad piece. It's so sad that good teachers are leaving because they can't get their kids to pass those stupid, punitive test.

[philosophie_en_rose]

3. Test scores are a tool.

If a teacher gives a spelling test and half the kids fail, then the teacher knows to refocus and teach those words again. It's not a signal that the teacher is a failure or that the children are stupid.

[LWolf]

5. It is today.

It is under current legislation.

[leyton]

11. I think it's a mixed bag.

I am currently in high school, taking mostly advanced courses.

I've noticed that I have had or do have several teachers who focus on test scores. A good portion of the second semester is focused on reviewing for a test, practicing test-taking skills, etc. (For example, in my German class, all we do is take AP German exams over and over and write an occasional AP essay.) These teachers tend not to be very good; we really don't learn much by practicing taking tests, and it gives me the impression that the teacher sees it as his or her job to make sure I pass a test, as opposed to developing a command of German or of chemistry or whatever. It's really pretty disheartening, and it's boring too.

On the other hand, I know test scores are an important measuring tool. To some extent, there has to be the expectation that at the end of the year, a student will be able to meet expectations. The problem is that teachers end up focusing too narrowly on these expectations and tailoring the entire course to state tests.

[lovedems]

4. I think this sucks. I was not a good test taker until I got to college

I was always a good student but a poor test taker. It was never the result of the teacher or the result of me not knowing the information.

There has to be a different way to measure a students knowledge.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Could it be a deliberate attempt to make children hate books and learning?

Make school into a never-ending round of drudgery and tension so that the kids will never want to open another book after they graduate--or don't graduate.

As a college instructor, sure, I found some students lacking in basic skills, but they were far outnumbered by the students who lacked intellectual curiosity and had the attitude, "Just give me what I need to regurgitate for the test so I can get at least a B."

[Lars39]

8. One of my kids had a book assigned in the 6th grade.

They were assigned X chapters per week. It was a good book, my kid read ahead. Time to write the essay on the chapters read, and he wrote it on the wrong chapters. Teacher would not let him take the test over, credit was not given for essay he had done. Could not reason with the teacher or the principal. End result: kid did not want to touch another book for about a year.

It was very obvious that learning to enjoy reading or that book in particular was not the goal. The goal was to force blind obedience.

[LWolf]

10. Whether it's deliberate or not, it's real.

I think it is an obvious consequence of the current climate. It is so bad that kids do hate books and learning. I have a classroom full of them. It has never been this bad. As a matter of fact, it is so bad that I'm beginning to dread school myself. On school days, I have headaches and stomachaches. All day. I often cry all the way to work, facing the never-ending round of drudgery and tension. I've developed hair-trigger angry, defiant responses to hearing an administrator's voice.

And every time I think it's just me, I'm reminded that it's not. When I pass another teacher standing next to her car, crying or raging in the parking lot at the end of the day. When I notice that no one is smiling as they pass in the halls. When I meet with teachers from other schools, other districts, and even other states. It's the same response. We are all there, to differing degrees.

[rock]

9. As is well-known is Software Engineering, tests don't produce quality

They can be used to assure quality, but not to produce it.