>Unfortunately, all the excuses in the world don't change the fact that these tests hurt education and hurt children.
The rub is that: so do terrible teachers.
It's inevitable in a world where bureaucrats take a top down approach to test taking and measurement that you end up with people who "teach the test". It sucks.
But, when left to their own devices, some teachers don't teach at all. Teachers follow the same distribution of personalities as any other occupation on this planet; some are good, some are bad, most are average. These standardized tests were an attempt at saying, "You MUST teach at least this well", with "well" being defined by factoids. So, on one hand you have a free-for-all, where great teachers influence and inspire, while poor teachers ruin lives. The other side is a middle ground where what is to be taught is quantified, and everyone gets a mediocre (at best) education.
What we need a hybrid system that allows good teachers to do what they want, while bad teachers are held accountable and forced to, at the least, teach the test.
> What we need a hybrid system that allows good teachers to do what they want, while bad teachers are held accountable and forced to, at the least, teach the test.
Bad teachers being held accountable is a good idea. It is such a good idea that bad teachers should lose their jobs. In some cases they should even lose their certification.
But, when left to their own devices, some teachers don't teach at all. Teachers follow the same distribution of personalities as any other occupation on this planet; some are good, some are bad, most are average.
In my experience there are precious few teachers who don't teach at all. In fact, I never had a single one that bad. At worst, they hand you the text book and make you read it over the course of the year and give you some tests on it.
The best teachers don't teach much really. Rather they inspire. The worst teachers may teach a lot, but they make you despise the material.
It seems to me that having teachers be forced to teach to standardized tests will kill off the first type of teacher, while having little or no effect on the second kind of teacher.
> The best teachers don't teach much really. Rather they inspire. The worst teachers may teach a lot, but they make you despise the material.
Going to my 11th grade Biology class every day, I used to joke with a couple friends "Do you think we'll be learning today?", "Ha ha, Probably not." The class was fun, not very serious, with the bulk of the period spent listening to our teacher tell stories. All that and the homework was always easy.
But at the end of the year, while studying for the final, we realized that we had learned a huge amount of biology. Our teacher had spent the classes telling us stories that related to the material, and the homework was easy because she inspired us to be interested in the questions being asked. I didn't remember toiling over the Krebs[1] and Calvin[2] cycles, but I certainly knew them. More importantly though, I found them interesting.
Bad teachers teaching bad tests is worse than bad teachers left to their own devices.
"Factoids" is a laughable metric for learning. (Especially when you're looking for factoids in a long-form response. If you want factoids, you need to ask for factoids. This test asked for complex thought, the grading should require complex thought.)
Not if learning those factoids allows one to move up the chain, from what is probably a terrible teacher to one that is hopefully, better. Or, those factoids might get you a job where one can begin to learn outside of a scholastic setting which isn't ideal for every personality. I realize it's not ideal. That's why it's such a difficult problem.
I come from a country (and province) with an incredibly powerful teacher's union. So I've seen what happens when teacher's are not held accountable for anything.
>"This test asked for complex thought, the grading should require complex thought"
Do you trust the average teacher to be a good judge of "complex thought"?
I trust the average teacher more than I trust the average school administrator. I don't want to give the average school administrator tools that would allow them to remove above average teachers.
Most of these blunt instruments will catch just as many good teachers as bad ones.
Bad teachers teaching bad tests is worse than bad teachers left to their own devices.
How is it possible that a student is worse off having the knowledge necessary to pass a test than to have no knowledge?
This test asked for complex thought, the grading should require complex thought
Kids are dumb. Their "complex thought" is really quite simple. Further, the iPhone required a stunning amount of complex thought to create, yet I can asses its functionality with only simple observation. I doesn't necessarily require complex thought to asses the product of complex thought, particularly when that's complex thought at grade level X.
>How is it possible that a student is worse off having the knowledge necessary to pass a test than to have no knowledge?
That's a totally false dichotomy. My point is that the test rewards students for simplistic thinking. It rewards the children who are not learning how to learn, but learning how to memorize.
>Kids are dumb. Their "complex thought" is really quite simple.
That's a terrible attitude to design a curriculum around. Curricula need to be designed around the concept that every child has an immense capacity for learning and complex thought. Curricula should be designed to reward complex thought. Rewarding rote memorization is not a bad thing, but it is at best a supplement to critical thinking.
Bad teachers teaching bad tests is worse than bad teachers left to their own devices.
Bad teachers don't teach. They don't convey knowledge.
That's a terrible attitude
No it isn't, it's reality. Kids are dumb. That's the point of growing up: you become inherently more intelligent and schooling gives you progressive knowledge which is (hopefully) just beyond your full grasp at any given time.
every child has an immense capacity for learning and complex thought
Do you actually know any children? They only have an immense capacity for complex thought if your expectations are low enough.
By the way, I love kids and enjoy interacting with them. But I don't for a second think they're precious, brilliant little snowflakes. They're still dumb. They may be smart among their peers, but they're still dumb on an absolute scale.
> Bad teachers don't teach. They don't convey knowledge
Teaching is not a simple matter of shoveling some quantity of "knowledge" into children. Education requires purpose, focus, and motivation. Good teachers inspire children to learn on their own. Bad teachers actively harm students' achievement.
As for my comment on tests, tests that encourage students to write terrible essays loaded with factoids are bad because they encurage students to write terrible essays. This has nothing to do with the teacher - except that if used as a metric for evaluating teachers, it will cause us to devalue teachers who teach students to write better essays.
And I stand by my assertion that no one who calls children dumb should be involved in their education. Motivation is a primary piece of education, and calling students dumb is profoundly demotivating.
I don't know why you're telling me the obvious. Nor do I see what it has to do with the distinction between good and bad teachers. You're making a lot of proclamations without any supporting evidence.
if used as a metric for evaluating teachers, it will cause us to devalue teachers who teach students to write better essays.
Why? What is the basis for that claim? Teaching a testing strategy for a unified test has very little to do with week-to-week teaching and testing. That's sort of the point, it's a standardized test meant to establish baseline comprehension. Why does an essay that hits at least a couple of key points somehow qualify as 'bad'?
And I stand by my assertion that no one who calls children dumb should be involved in their education.
What are you talking about? Who was talking about people involved in education calling children dumb? Who was even talking about calling children dumb? I describe children as dumb, because that's the reality, I don't call them dumb.
The rub is that: so do terrible teachers.
It's inevitable in a world where bureaucrats take a top down approach to test taking and measurement that you end up with people who "teach the test". It sucks.
But, when left to their own devices, some teachers don't teach at all. Teachers follow the same distribution of personalities as any other occupation on this planet; some are good, some are bad, most are average. These standardized tests were an attempt at saying, "You MUST teach at least this well", with "well" being defined by factoids. So, on one hand you have a free-for-all, where great teachers influence and inspire, while poor teachers ruin lives. The other side is a middle ground where what is to be taught is quantified, and everyone gets a mediocre (at best) education.
What we need a hybrid system that allows good teachers to do what they want, while bad teachers are held accountable and forced to, at the least, teach the test.