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No you wouldn't. You don't have to eliminate cheating, just keep it acceptably low.

Also, I never said the point was to maximize standardized test scores. That would be the student's incentive but not the teachers. Teachers would try to teach the curriculum and students would try to learn it so they could do well on the tests. Teachers need not receive any more pay for test scores.

As for the point - if you're abandoning measuring progress, let's just not educate kids and save ourselves a ton of money.




> You don't have to eliminate cheating, just keep it acceptably low.

Of course. I just don’t think it would be feasible to keep it acceptably low. Just look at what’s happening in countries like India. The have state wide internet shutdowns in some areas during the exam day amongst other draconian measures..

> That would be the student's incentive but not the teachers

They would align over time due to student/parent pressure to focus entirely on tests (and teachers wouldn’t have any incentive not to do that).

> As for the point - if you're abandoning measuring progress, let's just not educate kids and save ourselves a ton of money.

Tests work fine when they are used an an indicator. Prioritizing the maximization of test scores over everything else is already an issue, your suggestion would just make it much worse.

Also I entirely disagree with the whole premise of this statement. e.g. Finland for instance doesn’t have any standardized tests besides the one you take in your last year before graduating high school.

And yet.. Finland’s educational system is widely considered to be one of the best in the world.




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