<p>Anyway, please don't get the idea that I don't want my child to master the basics. I do want her to know how to read, write and do arithmetic. I just don't want her to get the idea that learning is boring and stressful because of all the "measuring" that is in vogue these days. I think there are better ways to do it than what is currently happening in my child's school. The sad thing is, this very same elementary school used to be a fun, exciting place to learn. Now it is becoming "mediocre." It is sad to watch it happen.</p>
<p>I didn't say that there isn't ANY practice time spent on learning to bubble. WHat I said was that schools across the country are not spending (wasting) hours and hours on the process. </p>
<p>Many bubbling tests do not have a separate sheet so there is less chance for misbubbling (bubbling in the wrong section). Each bubbling option immediately follows the questions.</p>
<p>For example:
1: What color is grass?</p>
<p>O Blue
O Green
O Black
O White</p>
<ol>
<li> 3 + 4 =</li>
</ol>
<p>O 5
O 6
O 7
O 8</p>
<p>Using tests that don't require a separate sheet makes teaching "bubbling" very easy.</p>
<p>Schools have always "measured" achievement. That's what regular class tests and quizzes do. </p>
<p>Standardized tests are just means to assess how one school compares to others. What good is getting good grades from a school if you don't know that the school's standards are so low that getting an "A" is a piece of cake. How else can it be assessed that tax dollars are not being wasted on inadequate schools? </p>
<p>Even parents who complain about standardized testing use those results when choosing a neighborhood to move to.</p>
<p>jlauer--I actually am not against standardized tests. And I am not against quizzes, spelling tests, etc. However, I think that at very young ages, one does not really get an accurate picture of what is going on with a child with some of these tests. For instance, what is the point at the end of kindergarten getting a "report" in the mail saying that your child did not reach the kindergarten reading benchmark? What does that mean? Well, it means nothing. This same kid that got that report was at the highest reading level a couple of years later, just because developmentally that was when it "clicked." And I "know" that, but I still find it upsetting and ridiculous to label a kindergartner as being "behind" because of this. </p>
<p>And now in second grade, my seven year old child is being tested before every report card and in addition there is "the big test" at the end of the year. That is in addition to the spelling tests and other routine tests.</p>
<p>I only wish the questions on the second grade tests were as straightforward as your sample questions. When I get a chance I'm going to ask my seven year old's teacher for another look at the test. I swear one of the questions was something like "Which article is most likely to appear in Sports Illustrated?" Well, that's pretty easy if you have a clue what Sports Illustrated is, which my seven year old does not. I think she bubbled fishing instead of basketball, so I guess that means she is "behind." What next? Questions on People Magazine??? (She actually might KNOW those, LOL.)</p>
<p>Researchers have found that group standardized tests before 3rd grade are not particularly valid. This is because too many kids younger than 3rd grade don't have the reading skills necessary to take group standardized tests. Some researchers even question the validity of results from 3rd graders.</p>
<p>Jlauer - I agree that there is some validity to evaluating school based on standardized tests. My biggest gripe is that the tests only evaluate a small portion of what teachers teach in school. For example, the state test in math in our state may have 3 questions for geometry, 4 in fractions, 2 for measurments, etc. How can you evaluate a school's math program based on that? Also, they can't evaluate a student's ability to work in a lab, to speak in public, to work in a group, to describe something orally - the list goes on. Standardized tests, as they are currently administered in the US, only measure a small portion of what is taught and I don't know if they do that very well. Evaluating schools only on their standardized test scores is akin to choosing what college you are going to apply to strictly on US News rankings.</p>
<p>Amen to that. I was rejected from the academically gifted program in elementary school because I didn't score high enough on the test. :eek: I didn't score very well on the EOGs either, for that matter. </p>
<p>One bone I forgot to pick earlier is that teaching to the test isn't well adapted to all styles of teaching. I spent part of my elementary school years in a German immersion school. As a result, our curriculum was a bit different than that covered by the state tests. Fair? No. I spent the second half of elementary school in the Open Program, a hands on learning style. It too is not compatible with teaching to a test, nor is Paideia or Montessori. You can't lump all schools together for a test, because the teaching styles are just too different. If nothing else, I gathered that from my early years.</p>
<p>The fact that standardized testing and "teaching to the test" doesn't work for all styles of teachings does not mean it should be abandoned. Unless there is a better way to measure how a tax-funded school is performing, standardized testing needs to continue. We shouldn't discontinue unless a truly better system can be its immediate replacement. </p>
<p>Many private schools and home schoolers use the same/similar standardized tests so that "warblers" problem doesn't happen to their students if they later move to the public school system.</p>
<p>WE must keep in mind that tax-payer schools need to have accountablity to the tax payers. We need to have some measurement otherwise schools can just hand out "A's" and no one would know what that school's "A's" mean.</p>
<p>It not wise to have the attitude that because a process isn't perfect it needs to be "thrown out" without a workable "more perfect" replacement. If a process isn't perfect a better one can be sought and implemented. But remember, there never will be a "perfect" process.</p>
<p>There is another type of "teaching to the test." Successful teaching relies on evaluation, not just of students, but of the instruction itself. In this process the teacher decides on the outcomes he or she would like to see from the students. Then an evaluation is designed to determine if indeed those outcomes have been achieved. Next, the starting point of the instruction is determined by describing the skills or knowledge that will be required prior to instruction or the skills or knowledge the learners have, and then the instruction is designed that will take the students from their entering repertoire to the outcomes identified as measured by the evaluation instrument. If students are not successful, the instruction is adjusted until it produces successful students. Careful iteration of this process of adjusting the teaching methods until the measured outcomes are reached can ensure that almost all children reach the desired outcome.</p>
<p>idad: good points. using the same arguments, states try to do the same. States need to evaluate students AND instruction. They, too, decide what kind of outcomes they want (what students should learn) after conferring with education experts and looking at what the future of employment in America looks like (need for strong math, English, reading, etc.). Therefore, states look for standardized tests which will evaluate whether those needed outcomes have been met. </p>
<p>Many teachers cooperate and acknowledge that the expected outcomes need to be met so they design their lesson plans to achieve them. Until there is a better system devised, this is it. </p>
<p>Public school teachers who don't like this process need to understand that if they are going to accept public funds for their wages, they are going to need to demonstrate that they deserve to receive them.</p>
<p>English skills are on the decline. UIUC found a rising rate of functionally illiterate college students in a recent study. We have quite a ways to go. :(</p>
<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/01/20/college_students_lacking_skills/%5B/url%5D">http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/01/20/college_students_lacking_skills/</a>
Pitiful.</p>
<p>Yes, it is a problem. which is why there has been more attention to standardized testing and high school grad testing.</p>
<p>For those not familiar with the process, it's called ongoing assessment. The purpose is feedback student <----> instructor. Instruction can then be differentiated for individual students. The best materials comprise a text set of linguistic and nonlinguistic sources, the more original the sources the better. Experiential learning is key, the more transactional the better, with students constructing knowledge for themselves in a way that is meaningful, with new learning building on foundational knowledge. Think of it as the coaching model v. the lecture model of instruction or the difference between learning biology from a textbook and learning biology in an experimental lab according to a research model. The fact is that we know quite a lot about effective teaching strategies and can quantify what works and what doesn't. We have many forms of assessment, too. We don't ask varsity athletes to write an essay. We ask them to win games and judge coaches on that record.</p>
<p>Mathews knows this. He says as much in the last sentence of the penultimate paragraph.</p>
<p>I suspect Mathews meant this article to be intentionally provocative. It's disingenuous to suggest that so-called "teaching to the test" relates to anything other than high-stakes NCLB-mandated standardized testing. Discussion of AP, IB, or Cambridge courses is beside the point, as he well knows if he has in fact been observing and reporting on schools for 23 years. Kids taking those classes are not the ones being left behind. It's the failing kids in failing schools who are, and that problem was the one NCLB was ostensibly supposed to remedy.</p>
<p>What changes have the accountability standards of NCLB wrought to help failing kids succeed in school? Can we taxpayers now be assured that our dollars ear-marked for education are being wisely and well used? Let's hold NCLB accountable for meeting its goals.</p>
<p>Jlauer95, you've described a limited measure of accountability well. We already know the best predictor of a student's school success; research has proven again and again that it is the socioeconomic status (SES) of the community in which the student resides. NCLB has been instrumental in spurring research on scientifically or evidence-based effective teaching methodology. What it hasn't done is address how best to implement and fund those changes for the students who need them most, the students with the obvious well-known risk factors for academic failure (poverty, family transiency, literacy-poor home environment, medical or cognitive disability, English as a second language in the home, etc.). What it hasn't done is keep the best, most experienced teachers in the schools that need them the most (in fact, it has accomplished just the opposite). </p>
<p>Let's look no further than the original intent of the legislation. Little education funding is federal; Title 1 is one example. So what club can be held over the head of districts (administrators and teachers) who fail to meet accountability standards, as measured by a standardized test? You can't withhold funds that weren't there to begin with. Instead, parents were to be given the choice to opt out of failing schools. (There's a certain bitter irony in that as private schools are exempt from accountability standards.) Yet that failsafe was not included in the legislation and has since been struck down as unconstitutional in Florida. So what recourse do parents have? Well, they can pick up and move to a better school district IF they have the means to do that. But if they did, their kids probably wouldn't be in a failing school to begin with.</p>
<p>States do already have educational standards in place. Consequences to teachers and administrators for failing to teach to standards vary. The most leverage occurs with teachers who haven't achieved tenure, that their contracts will not be renewed. Whether or not lesson plans are even checked at all, much less for state standards, varies widely. Many schools are so desperate for warm bodies in the classroom -- especially in schools identified as failing -- that vast numbers of teachers are either not certified in subject or certified in an area not concordant with degree. One failing elementary school in my area this year has 17 new teachers out of 22 staff positions and a new principal. NCLB doesn't track staff turnover, a huge risk factor for school failure. </p>
<p>When you set as a measure of "success" a once-a-year, one-size-fits-all standardized test for every child in every district in a state, you have to question what goal you're attempting to meet (just as idad pointed out). I wonder how much outcry there would be if we instituted a national standards literacy test for adults, say for driving or voting privileges, based on the rationale that one should not drive or vote if one is illiterate. Let's further, for argument's sake, make two passing scores: a 500 verbal and a 500 math on an SAT clone. Let's hold individual states accountable for ensuring that they not foist illiterate drivers or voters on the rest of us. Such a proposal would surely be met with derision; but keeping to the hypothetical, obviously there would soon be a booming cottage industry in prep classes for the state test--and a secondary booming cottage industry in gaming the requirement. Obviously there would be pressure on "failing" individuals to figure out how to pass or bypass the standard. States, held to accountability measures for percent of illiterate drivers and voters under the threat of withheld federal funds for highway improvements and knowing there is a certain number of citizens who will never score higher than 500/500, might even learn to "massage" the stats. In the end, do we have safer roads? more informed voters?</p>
<p>That is what is meant by "teaching to the test." And it is exactly what we are doing to our children, to their detriment. Maybe we could come up with a better assessment model, like the one idad suggests. Maybe we could start by first screening students to see who needs remediation and not waste the instructional time of students who don't. Maybe we should give our best teachers monetary incentives to teach failing students in failing schools. Maybe we should lower pay scales for teachers in the easier, high-SES districts (how many of those posting here would put up with that, knowing the kinds of property taxes they pay and what kind of teachers they would get?). Maybe we should facilitate access for all students to all kinds of alternative education opportunites. Maybe we could just simply acknowledge that NCLB, in its present form, has not been the panacea many political opportunists claimed it would be.</p>