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A lot of people seem to be opposed to standards and standardized testing. If you are opposed, how would you, better, guarantee that the same material is taught in different schools? Or do you think the teacher should just choose to teach what they want to teach?
As a former engineer, I'm used to standards. Working to them is how you show you are a professional. I'm kind of baffled as to why so many are opposed to standards in teaching. For the most part, I have no issue with the standards that the state has handed me. There's nothing in them I don't think is worth teaching and very little they don't have in them that I would teach.
IMO, if the standards and the test reflect what students need to know, there should be no issue with teaching to the standards or the test.
I don't have any problem with standards when it comes to the fact that all students in a certain district should be taught certain material, my issue is with the state testing component. If I have a student who has been absent 70% of the semester, refuses to do homework, and tries to sleep whenever he/she is there should I be judged on this child's performance on the curriculum. Heck if this student scores better than 30% he/she has beat the odds based on the amount of the curriculum he/she was exposed to.
I simply have issue with my job and my performance being based on a state test. What if I have students who come to me who can't read at the level the test is written, what if I have a student who is ESL, what if I have a student who misses 70% of the year, what if I have kids who despite all my attempts sleep all day in every class, should I be judged on that child's performance?
I work 10 hour days teaching and tutoring. I work every weekend answering e-mails and I make parent phone calls almost every night when I get home. I don't even have a family of my own because I don't have time because I work to much. I teach the curriculum to a tee yet I've never had a non-honors level class score 100% proficiency on a state test because there is always one student who fits what I described above. I suppose maybe if I worked harder that student might have passed.
Location: Long Island via Chapel Hill NC, Go Heels?
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Standardized tests are almost always easier than the class turns out to be anyway, so why not just make the class easier, and not give a standardized test? If the kid doesn't come to school or fails, that's on him. It shouldn't be the teachers fault that their student doesn't do the work or doesn't come to school.
I don't have an issue with standards within a local area. However, I do have an issue with national standards. The differences between student populations in this contry is so vast, that national standards do not make sense.
Also, some standardized testing is not a problem. When I was in elementary school, it was not a big deal. It was barely mentioned until the day of the test. Now, it's all schools think about. That is a problem.
I actually don't have an issue with standards. I do, however, have an issue with standardized testing and the uses it is being put too.
I believe we *should* have a national curriculum. That does not mean that everyone should take all the courses, but each course should be taught to standards. If you take Algebra I in Chicago, it should be the same course you would take in New York or California. This eliminates the problem of kids moving having had Algebra I in Chicago and not actually having been taught to the same standard in the new school. Thus the kids get put into Geometry without actually having passes Algebra I.
Most of the countries that do well on the international standards have national curricula they adhere to.
Now, standardized tests *can* be used. However, they should not be used to *rate* schools. They should also not be used to keep students from taking college prep courses or from proceeding to another level. Any test should be used to track individual students rather than *groups.* It really helps to give kids a pretest on material and then a post test to see what they have learned.
Also, most standardized tests are *mulitple guess* and kids can be taught strategies that help them pass these tests. That doesn't necessarily mean that they have the knowledge we think they do. I am a good test taker. Some kids panic and cannot do well on tests. They may actually have as much or more knowledge than a good test taker. We need assessments based in reality.
Standards and standardized testing are two different animals, or at least they should be. Standards are fine but I agree with the point above against national standards. Schools and districts lose out on really getting a sense of what and why they are teaching if they don't engage in the process of determining standards on their own. Relying on national standards can be a lazy way out, and decisions about what goes on in classrooms is too far removed from the classrooms themselves. The buck keeps getting passed further and further down the line.
As far as standardized tests go, they're also fine as long as they are used for the reason they were created, but they're not. They have become the ultimate gauge of the efficacy of schools and teachers, a task they are wholly unsuited to do. There are too many variables among schools and students (and I'm not talking strictly about demographics) to think that a single measure can be used. The application of simplistic solutions to complex problems is shortsighted and illogical.
I actually don't have an issue with standards. I do, however, have an issue with standardized testing and the uses it is being put too.
I believe we *should* have a national curriculum. That does not mean that everyone should take all the courses, but each course should be taught to standards. If you take Algebra I in Chicago, it should be the same course you would take in New York or California. This eliminates the problem of kids moving having had Algebra I in Chicago and not actually having been taught to the same standard in the new school. Thus the kids get put into Geometry without actually having passes Algebra I.
Most of the countries that do well on the international standards have national curricula they adhere to.
Now, standardized tests *can* be used. However, they should not be used to *rate* schools. They should also not be used to keep students from taking college prep courses or from proceeding to another level. Any test should be used to track individual students rather than *groups.* It really helps to give kids a pretest on material and then a post test to see what they have learned.
Also, most standardized tests are *mulitple guess* and kids can be taught strategies that help them pass these tests. That doesn't necessarily mean that they have the knowledge we think they do. I am a good test taker. Some kids panic and cannot do well on tests. They may actually have as much or more knowledge than a good test taker. We need assessments based in reality.
National standards as far as Algebra and Chemistry are fine. However, I have a problem with it in elementary school and times before taking high school type classes. An elementary school in the district I live in will not be able to teach to the same standards as a well off district. It's just not possible.
I don't have any problem with standards when it comes to the fact that all students in a certain district should be taught certain material, my issue is with the state testing component. If I have a student who has been absent 70% of the semester, refuses to do homework, and tries to sleep whenever he/she is there should I be judged on this child's performance on the curriculum. Heck if this student scores better than 30% he/she has beat the odds based on the amount of the curriculum he/she was exposed to.
I simply have issue with my job and my performance being based on a state test. What if I have students who come to me who can't read at the level the test is written, what if I have a student who is ESL, what if I have a student who misses 70% of the year, what if I have kids who despite all my attempts sleep all day in every class, should I be judged on that child's performance?
I work 10 hour days teaching and tutoring. I work every weekend answering e-mails and I make parent phone calls almost every night when I get home. I don't even have a family of my own because I don't have time because I work to much. I teach the curriculum to a tee yet I've never had a non-honors level class score 100% proficiency on a state test because there is always one student who fits what I described above. I suppose maybe if I worked harder that student might have passed.
I agree that you cannot use standardized tests to measure individual teachers for the reasons you state, however, you can compare schools. Schools in the same area will, likely, face the same issues. You cannot compare schools in separate districts though because they may not. Demographics is a strong predictor of student success but we should all be striving to teach the same material every year. What we need to drop is the idea that this can be used to evaluate teachers. It can't. At least not without a cross check against absence rates and IEP's.
One thing I don't get about standardized tests is why we don't use them to determine pass/fail for students. If what is on those tests is really what children should learn by a certain grade, why are we allowing the ones who didn't learn it to pass on to the next class where they will perform equally dismally? A child who cannot read on grade level isn't going to do well. I teach chemistry and if you can't read on a 10th grade level, you're not going to understand what you're reading in the text and our text is the starting point for what I teach. I require my students read the material before I teach it (they have to turn in their notes). I'm sure my lectures make a lot more sense to those who actually read the material and understood it than those who don't.
Maybe we need to have standardized final exams that students must pass to move up to the next grade. That would put pressure on teachers to get the kids who can to pass but it would remove the pressure of those who aren't doing the work or lack skills on grade level because they wouldn't keep moving up the system without assistance.
I don't have an issue with standards within a local area. However, I do have an issue with national standards. The differences between student populations in this contry is so vast, that national standards do not make sense.
Also, some standardized testing is not a problem. When I was in elementary school, it was not a big deal. It was barely mentioned until the day of the test. Now, it's all schools think about. That is a problem.
So you're advocating a system that widens the gap between the haves and have nots? If you allow the have nots to be taught to a lesser standard, aren't you sentencing them to a lower quality life?
I agree that populations are different but we shouldn't be adjusting the goals of teaching to handle that. Perhaps we need a longer school year or school day in areas that are struggling to teach to the standards of better off districts but I cannot agree that we should teach those children to lower standards. That is writing them off before they've had a chance to even try. I do agree that different demographics will require different scaffolding to get to the standards. I can't agree to lower the bar for them.
I think that Standardized testing is a useful tool to help measure progress in individual students. I don't think that they really show if a school is really doing it's job or not because not all students test well or take the test seriously. Also, they need to be standard. Since our oldest was in 8th grade I think they have changed the "standard" test about every other year. It's pretty hard to track progress if they keep changing the test.
I also don't think that schools should live and die based on standardized tests. One example-our middle school was placed on the "watch" list last year because the kids went from 98% passing to 97% passing-so technically they didn't show "adequate progress", keeping in mind that that 2-3% is NEVER going to be able to pass these tests. Then you look at a school in Minneapolis that went from 28% passing to 29% passing so they are seen as having made "adequate yearly progress". Now, it's great that they moved up but tell me, which school is really failing???
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