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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhen Parents Yank Their Kids Out of Standardized Tests
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/when-parents-yank-their-kids-out-of-standardized-tests/281417/Teachers at Seattles Garfield High School voted unanimously earlier this year not to give the districts required reading and math test. They encountered predictable resistance from district officials and harsh criticism from outside observers. Many students and parents, however, sided with the teachers.
The PTA and student government leaders voted in support of the teachers, and many parents sent in opt-out letters to exempt their children from testing that they viewed as an inappropriate measure of teachers effectiveness. And so when administrators came to class with lists of kids who needed to take the tests during the spring testing period, many students were exempted and others students simply refused to go with the administrators.
There was the most incredible sense of solidarity in the building, recalls Garfield history teacher Jesse Hagopian.
Parents who opt out generally do so out of concern that too much time is being taken with testing (and test preparations), that tests are not reliable or valid measures of what students know, and that tests are being used to rate schools, teachers, and students in ways that arent fair.
Bandit
(21,475 posts)What the hell is, I wonder?
bemildred
(90,061 posts)There is no simple metric that is also accurate and fair. None.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)xchrom
(108,903 posts)i've been perusing old school restaurants like 21 club and trader vics -- looking at old school cocktail recipes like rye whiskey manhattans -- and looking over old school recipes for stuff like pot roasts.
oh my but i am an aging queen.
howz by you - my wise and observant amigo?
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Struggling with old ghosts, losing weight, watching the show. I used to tell myself I had to live to an old age so I could watch the current debacle unfold (you could see it coming, even if you didn't know the details). And here I am.
My Dad had a bunch of old matchbooks and souvenir things from bars and hotels and whatnot in LA. He owned a parking garage in Hollywood in the 1930s. They are amusing to look at, and I'm old enough to remember the context. It sounds like you're having fun, that's what I try to do too.
My life is good, which means I have time to work on myself, which is a thorny business. Isn't it?
xchrom
(108,903 posts)as an old hippie -- i was a hippie in my youth -- i never saw the contradiction in appreciating some of what predecessors appreciated.
i don't work on my self so much any more as stand back and look at it all.
it's been a long road.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)The mellow ones. Windows into other places and times.
"The journey is the reward. Pay attention."
JimboBillyBubbaBob
(1,389 posts)I work as a Learning Specialist and I have no two students who learn or give back material in the same manner.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)This seems obvious to me. But apparently it is not obvious to some.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)If so, read on. If not, stop here.
The best predictor of a standardized test score has always been, and remains, parent SES. We knew that before the current standards and accountability movement pushed high-stakes standardized tests to the forefront of education. That simple fact makes the current use of standardized test scores corrupt.
How do we know what students know? The same as we always have. We ask them.
We ask them to show us in a broad variety of ways.
There are many, many ways to measure what students know, if measurement is what you are after. Each of those measurements measures only one facet; you put them all together to create the whole picture. For example, a reading "fluency" score, which is not really "fluency," but words per minute, gives a measure of word recognition and decoding skills, but not comprehension. Other measures are required to get the big picture. A standardized test can be part of that picture, but should never be taken as the whole story, and should always be interpreted with several grains of salt.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)that i began to encounter tests that were meant for anybody other than my teacher and folks.
that's what a lot of those parent teacher talks were about.
not to mention -- my teachers KNEW all of us kids really well.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)over the course of my career, to always "loop" with my kids. I've always had them for more than one year. Sometimes two; the current structure I have them for 3 years. We develop a much stronger working relationship, parent and teacher and student, and we all benefit.
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)a term's worth of homework and test grades for Algebra rather than a single high-stakes test.
d_r
(6,907 posts)there is no process for "opt out." You can just keep your kids at home on test days of course. But 15% of their grade is based on the test scores, and they can't graduate high school without passing the test. Next year the common core tests roll out, so schools will be figuring out how to do them on laptops on ipads. Many will not have enough computers for everyone, so they will spread the testing over several weeks - team A takes it this week, team B next week, and so on. It will be a mess.
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)that they could be spending learning.
you got it
Jim__
(14,045 posts)Whenever I've seen criticism of these tests, a large part of the criticism is the amount of time that is wasted on preparing for the tests. Students aren't taught math but, rather, are taught how to take the requisite math tests. It would be beneficial if students who opted out of the tests, could get an education that wasn't based on preparing for tests.
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)Most of the spring semester goes down the tubes.
libodem
(19,288 posts)They have the right idea. The Global Reform Movement equals competition, standardization, test based accountability, school choice, education as an industry, verses : collaboration, personalization, trust based responsibility, equity, education as a human right. The five areas look much better in columns across from each other. Wish I had a graphic for you.
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)They really seem to stress teachers out, too. We'll probably never get colleges to stop requiring ACT and SAT, but I think all the standardized tests have an overall negative effect on teachers and students during grade school. They seem to be requiring them more often these days, but the schools don't seem to be getting any better.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)And we always had tests -- the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. But teachers never spent specific class time "prepping" us for them. They taught us reading and math. Which is what we would be learning anyway.
My kids, who went to el-hi in the 80s and 90s, also had regular testing throughout their years. It was during their generation, in fact, that high-stakes state graduation exams were put into place. Their teachers never taught to the test either. They just taught. With one exception, I guess: kids who were failing were given special tutoring. I know because I volunteered as a tutor and would come several times a week. But my job was to help them with their reading deficits ... not to coach them for the test. It's not even possible to do that. I helped them with their reading. (Most of my tutoring kids were immigrants who didn't speak English as a first language. Sometimes I'd work with them on how to guess the meaning of a word they didn't know by using contextual clues. That, I thought, would help them in the tests, but also just help them in general.)
Can someone tell me what "teaching to the test" actually is? As opposed to teaching?
roody
(10,849 posts)Finding the many tricks in the wrong answe
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Well, one can learn the subject
or one can learn to take the test on the subject.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)You either understand fractions or long division, or know how to read for comprehension or not. Sure, you can teach kids a few strategies: if you don't know an answer fill in a bubble anyway (or don't, depending on how the test is scored). But I honestly don't understand exactly what can take up all class time in this regard.
If you mean, an understanding of addition and subtraction is required in the grade 2-3 test, and they spend time teaching addition and subtraction ... I'm sort of okay with that. Unless the kids who already know how to add and subtract are being subjected to review work when they could be doing something else.
I'm just asking for detailed examples of what is being taught when a teacher is teaching to the test.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)Feynmann headed the computer** staff at Los Alamos during the development of the Bomb. In the 1960s he was invited to Brazil where he got to review their education system. He was surprised to find their high school students using the same Physics text books that Americans used in college. And they were scoring just as well as the American college students on those tests you find in the teacher's version of that book.
The reason this so surprised him was that there were very few noted Brazilian physicists. So he made up new tests. The American college students scored just as well on those tests as they had on the standard tests. Most Brazilian students failed.
When he spoke to Brazilian teachers they told him that they were judged by their students tests. So they taught the students the specific problems that were in the book, rather than teaching them a real understanding of the underlying physics. When faced with new problems that used the same physics, the pupils did not know what to do. They had learned the answers, not the physics required to figure out the answers themselves.
When a teacher's job is ensure students pass a test, they will teach students to pass the test rather than teach them the information the test is meant to verify they possess. We know this because Brazil was doing this back in the 1960s. It failed.
**Before someone shouts "liar, they didn't have any computers at Los Alamos," let me point out that a person who computes is rightfully called a computer. Members of his staff were the computers, not some electronic machine.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)As I said, standardized testing is not something new in the US. It's been around since 1935--that is to say, well during the time Mr. Feynmann made his observations. My own experience as a student, and my kids' experience, no one ever "taught to the tests." And they had plenty of tests. And they went to public schools.
I understand the difference between rote learning and conceptual learning. Those are different approaches. It's not a sufficient nor necessary condition to explain why the existence of tests means choosing one style over another. To me, it's a myth that is being promulgated.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)You can pass the test without understanding the physics if you simply remember the answers to the specific questions that are on that test.
And you can't blame the teachers for this. This is now their job. Our politicians made it so. They have to be able to demonstrate to the voters that they are doing something. Improved test scores can do that.
Sure, American businesses are now complaining that entry-level Americans don't seem to know anything. While we dominated the world on most things prior to "reforming" education. But that isn't easy to measure. The test scores are.
So we are now teaching our kids to pass the test and fail in the world.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)Honestly, I know teachers and I've had kids in public schools in the not so distant past. This just isn't true.
The real problem with today's education has nothing to do with testing or teachers. It has to do with the growing income inequality and difficult social issues. We're dealing with kids who barely learn to read, write, add, or subtract--physics doesn't even enter their universe. And it won't until we figure out how to get every child up to par at the most fundamental levels.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)You cannot teach to a specific test if you do not know the questions in advance, so this seems to be a problem easily solved. Don't give schools and teachers the materials and they won't teach to the tests. The other solution, which seems equally simple, is to make the tests comprehensive enough that teaching to that test becomes impossible -- a teacher is then forced to cover the subject in its entirety or the students will miss answers and demonstrate areas of weakness.
It seems to me, from my ignorant perspective as an outsider, that teachers would prefer no objective performance measures at all. This certainly seems to be what they are fighting for. Which might be fine in some idealized world, but schools are (and always will be) judged based on the educational job they do. Without objective third-party testing there is no way to do so fairly -- and no way to prevent schools from pressuring teachers into giving grades the students have not earned.
From my perspective as an ignorant outsider, education seems like one of the easier jobs to evaluate. The results can be objectively measured. We can assign standards that a student is expected to reach, employ educators to help students reach that goal, test for success, and based on the testing results see if the problems are the failure of the educator or the individual student. Since there is an incentive for everyone involved (students, teachers, and administrators) to cheat, such testing would need to be administered by some third party agency and adjusted as necessary, but an objective measure of results is not only possible, but easy.
And I suspect that THIS, more than any other factor, is why so many within the education system oppose these tests. Teachers and schools do not like them for the same reason that students have always disliked tests -- they offer objective results. This is an understandable position for a teacher to take -- who wouldn't rather have a job where skill and success at that job is not only irrelevant, but never even measured -- but the results of doing it in this way have been predictably disappointing.
Conclusion: Testing methods might need improvement, but testing itself is necessary.
I welcome reasonable debate and look forward to being educated why I am mistaken.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)I think it is safe to assume that learning problems are not isolated to any one classroom or even school -- and if they are it is done deliberately and known in advance.
In any case, if done properly standardized testing VALIDATES the teacher's own grading, methods, and student assessment, while allowing an objective picture of the situation. Testing helps reveal exactly where problems are, whether the individual student, the teacher, or the school. Without this information the public is left shooting in the dark.
They're the ones paying for it. They are paying for results. They need to know the facts. The ONLY way to get those facts is through some sort of independent and objective review process that includes testing of students and teachers to ensure that the job is being done properly.
MattBaggins
(7,894 posts)you got that part right at least
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)You're not a teacher are you?
Response to AlbertCat (Reply #19)
guyton This message was self-deleted by its author.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)I'm a strong advocate of arts and music education. It was a big part of my kids' public school education and something I fought for continually. (I actually voted to oppose saving the "gifted and talented" program, which my kids were in, at the elementary school if it meant teaching art-on-a-cart---the budgeta-saving item that was being proposed.)
Music and art have been targets since forever when budgets get tight, because in the US we don't value the arts. Look at the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts: it is a pittance, around $130 million, which is Nothing. You can't blame testing on that. Arts and music get cut in all public budgets because they're the easiest thing to cut. There used to be a vast and vibrant program of State Arts Councils in each states, which gave amazing support to the visual and performing arts. Now most are barely a dot on the landscape.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)It can't be quantified with a number and measured against a national average and then used to punish a teacher's union, so , welp, can't keep it around!
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)test. Then they review the worksheets. Then they take the practice tests. Then they review those, and perhaps do even more worksheets. Then they take the real test. They also take the Stanford test, every year and do prep for that, too. And they are so fixated on everyone taking the test, I've got a seventh grader who has to take the 7th grade math test and also the algebra test, instead of simply taking the algebra test. 'Cause, you know, the the standardized test she took last year to show that she already had command of the 7th and 8th grade math curriculum and and could therefore take algebra early (after taking yet another test to show she was ready for algebra) wasn't enough.
When I was a kid, we took only the Stanford tests. We didn't take them every year, and we didn't do any prep for them.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)and took those same tests. Again, so special test prep.
Teaching content appropriate to the age of student and the class being taught is the key.
I wound up transferring my children from very good public schools into an excellent private school because of a bullying problem with my oldest son. At the private school, not only were the classes smaller, no more than fifteen kids per classroom, but they were simply taught a lot more. They'd be learning new content the next to the last day of school, whereas in that same good public school, textbooks were turned in a week before and the kids spent the final week watching movies.
mopinko
(69,806 posts)they have stood by happily all these years as these tests were used on students. but now that people want to use them to measure teachers, they are the devils playthings.
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)I graduated high school in 1987, and we took a few of those tests back then, but we didn't take them nearly as often as they're doing it now. My teachers were always nervous before we had those tests because they knew that if too many of us did poorly on a particular subject, they would look bad. So administrators have always used those tests to evaluate teachers' success at giving us the info we needed to pass those tests, it's just that the purpose of the tests weren't so directly geared for that purpose.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)None of them like the right-wing lines of reasoning such as the one you just used.
Renew Deal
(81,802 posts)And it's nationwide. There are big issues with this in NY right now.
Orsino
(37,428 posts)lunasun
(21,646 posts)not a child's education
yurbud
(39,405 posts)bhikkhu
(10,708 posts)as opposed to the rote solving of formulaic problems. The difference is, you can memorize a formula, plug in the numbers and get the right answer, without understanding a bit of what you are actually doing. In most of the existing textbooks that's what they have for testing - 80-90% plugging things into formulas, and 10% or so of word problems.
Mostly my kids hate the word problems because they have to think about them (which is hard to do while texting, watching tv, and listening to music), but if you can't do the word problems you don't really understand the subject.
I think the objections to the new tests have things backwards, and that the new tests are well-intentioned efforts in the right dorection. If kids can plug in numbers but don't understand the material, what use is that? If they aren't tested, nobody knows whether they know the material or not - themselves included.
On a personal note - I'm older (close to 50), but still working toward a college degree, chemistry being the current thing. I've a decent amount of general knowledge and have read a textbook or two, but only by actually doing practice tests do I find out whether I understand the material. In the prep for the final I took a practice test the other day; in spite of some confidence in my knowledge, I discovered I lacked a few critical pieces of understanding...so its back to the books to learn some concepts better. How a person would do that without testing - and most usefully with word problems - I have no idea.
You can very effectively protect your self-esteem by opting out of tests, but that's not education.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Myth: Common Core tests will be much better than current exams, with many items measuring higher-order skills.
Reality: New tests will largely consist of the same old, multiple-choice questions.
Proponents initially hyped new assessments that they said would measure and help teachers promote critical thinking. In fact, the exams will remain predominantly multiple choice. Heavy reliance on such items continues to promote rote teaching and learning. Assessments will generally include just one session of short performance tasks per subject. Some short-answer and essay questions will appear, just as on many current state tests. Common Core math items are often simple computation tasks buried in complex and sometimes confusing word problems (PARCC, 2012; SBAC, 2012). The prominent Gordon Commission of measurement and education experts concluded Common Core tests are currently far from what is ultimately needed for either accountability or classroom instructional improvement purposes (Gordon Commission, 2013).
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)But that's no excuse to scrap the process.
Testing is an essential part of the education process; it is the final step to determine if the student has actually learned what the course was designed to teach them. Everyone understands this. So far the only real complaints I have seen are that the tests could be better designed (a complaint common to damn near every test I have taken in my life) and that schools and teachers are inclined to cheat the test.
Both of these are easily addressed. The former through continuous work and improvement, and the later by taking this testing out of the hands of the education system and placing it under the control of independent authorities.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)scrapping this corporate testing system would be the best place to start.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)Sorry, but we need absolute standards and objective tests, and these tests and standards should apply nationwide. Part of ensuring a meaningful standard is good tests that measure student ability fairly. That means tests that cannot be "taught to."
MattBaggins
(7,894 posts)You anti-school types are the worst enemies of our children.
You can not create one size fits all tests for all children. Your holy standardized tests give you no more info than what a certain section of students who learn that way, in fact know.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)Obviously educators must play a role in developing tests and curriculum, but the application of these tests must be handled independently, and in a way that makes teaching to the test impossible. As for what a test can tell us, the answer to that is that a test can tell us as much information as the test is designed to discover. Discovering whether or not students know what they are supposed to know is not even remotely difficult.
The public, the people who employ our educators, have a RIGHT to expect objectively measurable results. That's what they are paying for. They have a right and obligation to know how things are going at every step along the way. They need to know what's working and what is not, they need to know which teachers are getting the job done and which are not. And more, they need a mechanism that allows a direct comparison between their own school and the schools in other districts and states so that they can recognize where changes need to be made.
And so far, in this thread, no one has offered any DEFENSIBLE reason why this is such a terrible idea. The only excuses thus far offered have been candy floss, vanquished with a wave of the hand. That, and insults.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)together against these ridiculous tests.
TBF
(31,922 posts)Over a billion dollars in the past decade for testing. My daughter has done very well on them. Of course she gets high grades and is in an advanced curriculum. My guess is that she is the type who does ok with traditional learning methods and we really don't need to pay Pearson a billion dollars to realize that.The money would be better spent on any number of tthings - teacher salaries, extra tutoring, materials and books, putting the arts back in school - the list goes on and on.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)it's not the best indicator of what we know.
TBF
(31,922 posts)I was that kind of kid too - and perfectly average when I got to university. Which is fine - not all of us need to be brain surgeons. It kills me that they have cut the arts though. I pay extra for private art classes because it is the thing that she really loves to do - and think how many kids have talent and may not have that opportunity.
And they continue down this road - trying to break the teachers' unions, teach by test, cut extra-curriculars which may be the only things keeping some kids in school, and expecting to use one mold and have everyone come out the same. It is just another money grab by the very wealthy.
MattBaggins
(7,894 posts)on my reagents and finals. I can pass tests with my eyes closed.
Tests are really great for gauging learning. One size fits all standardized tests are useless.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)and she SAILED through tests.
it was a sight to see.
jsr
(7,712 posts)For-profit standardized testing industry can't be trusted
By Todd Farley, Special to the Times
In Print: Sunday, May 20, 2012
The scores for the writing portion of this year's FCAT plummeted so precipitously that the abilities of Florida's student writers aren't even being called into question. The validity of the scoring statistics are. While I don't want to say "I told you so" regarding the dubiousness of those statistics, I did tell you so, as my 2009 book highlighted in detail all the ways the numbers produced by the for-profit standardized testing industry cannot be trusted.
Take the stats produced at Pearson scoring centers around the country, where I worked for the better part of 15 years. On the first project I worked scoring student essays, I had to pass a qualifying exam to stay on the job. When I failed that qualifying exam (twice), I was unceremoniously fired. So were half the original hundred scorers who had also failed the tests. Of course, when Pearson realized the next morning they no longer had enough scorers to complete the project on time, they simply lowered the "passing" grade on the qualifying test and put us flunkies right back on the job.
Yes, those of us considered unable to score student essays 12 hours before were welcomed back into the scoring center with open arms, deemed qualified after all.
Such duplicity was not an aberration in my experience either. For a decade and a half I saw every sort of corporate chicanery and statistical tomfoolery. The test-scoring industry seemed focused on getting deadlines met, projects completed and scores put on tests, but only then did any thought seem to be given to meaningful scores being put on them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/opinion/28farley.html