Testing is Destroying Our Schools!

[NHdisneylover]

I am a retired teacher and I hate testing. It truly doesn't show anything about the student except whether s/he is proficient in testing. It doesn't show curiosity, research skills, love of reading, ability to think creatively, problem solving skills, etc. It shows whether s/he has mastered a certain set of skills.

To me education should not only be about teaching a set of skills, but encouraging all the things I mentioned above!

I want students to know and enjoy history because of what we learn about those who came before us and what we can learn about ourselves and how to apply what went before to what comes next.

I want students to know and enjoy science from a sense of curiosity and wanting to know how things work/go together--why they work--what would happen if.............

I want them to love reading all kinds of things--books, magazines, how-to, biographies, novels.............

I want them to enjoy writing for many purposes and WANT to do it.

I want them to enjoy math--not have anxiety about it. I want it to be fun and natural. I want them to know how to solve problems creatively and know why you should add, subtract, multiply or divide in a particular instance. Sometimes problems can be resolved in many different ways and still be "right." I want them to see that, too.

If my children were small, I would homeschool them instead of sending them to either a public or private school. I have worked among their teachers and seen that the good ones are few and far between. I worked with far more poor and mediocre ones than really good ones! In a school with 10 to 12 classes in each grade, there would be one or at most two teachers in each grade that would truly teach each child and could help the slowest as well as the quickest learners (and did consistently.) The rest taught to the middle and did as little as possible to adapt the curriculum to meet the needs or interests of their students.

I would love for my children to have you as a teacher--in a setting that allows you to teach as you see fit

 

[Poohforyou]

I am a retired teacher and I hate testing. It truly doesn't show anything about the student except whether s/he is proficient in testing. It doesn't show curiosity, research skills, love of reading, ability to think creatively, problem solving skills, etc. It shows whether s/he has mastered a certain set of skills.

To me education should not only be about teaching a set of skills, but encouraging all the things I mentioned above!

I want students to know and enjoy history because of what we learn about those who came before us and what we can learn about ourselves and how to apply what went before to what comes next.

I want students to know and enjoy science from a sense of curiosity and wanting to know how things work/go together--why they work--what would happen if.............

I want them to love reading all kinds of things--books, magazines, how-to, biographies, novels.............

I want them to enjoy writing for many purposes and WANT to do it.

I want them to enjoy math--not have anxiety about it. I want it to be fun and natural. I want them to know how to solve problems creatively and know why you should add, subtract, multiply or divide in a particular instance. Sometimes problems can be resolved in many different ways and still be "right." I want them to see that, too.

If my children were small, I would homeschool them instead of sending them to either a public or private school. I have worked among their teachers and seen that the good ones are few and far between. I worked with far more poor and mediocre ones than really good ones! In a school with 10 to 12 classes in each grade, there would be one or at most two teachers in each grade that would truly teach each child and could help the slowest as well as the quickest learners (and did consistently.) The rest taught to the middle and did as little as possible to adapt the curriculum to meet the needs or interests of their students.

I guess we hit pay dirt because you described just about every teacher my 8th grader has had so far. We're in a fanastic district and have the property tax bill to show for it .

Our elementary schools have 3-4 classes per grade level. Many teachers live in our community and their children attend our school so they have a vested interest in succeeding. We have programs in place to help kids at both ends of the learning spectrum while not forgetting about the majority in the middle.

IMO, homeschooling is not the answer to most educational issues.

 

[LilyWDW]

The current system does not work, I will agree with that. However, we need some sort of Benchmarking that can be applied to all schools on all states so that we can see issues and problems as early as possible. Benchmarking is an important aspect that is needed. It has to be standardized though otherwise comparing scores would be worthless!

 

[Mickeyrella]

I disagree. My kids went to private (for profit) school K-8, and private (non-profit) High School.
Testing has been embraced by the private schools for years as a marketing tool to show how much more their students learn than public school students.
Long before public schools, and far more extensive testing.

When my kids hit college, (1 to a private college, 1 to a public college) both were amazed how poorly prepared their classmates were that came from public schools. They couldn't read, they couldn't write, they couldn't do math, and they didn't know how to study for tests. Both kids specifically said all those tests in school helped make a difference.

Agree with you, I went to a private school (in another country, before moving to America) and when I got here, I was amazed of how EASY and dumb public school was here. When I was in 5th grade I was taking 15 different classes (no extra classes), when I got to 6th grade, they were teaching 4th grade math of my country. People in HS didn't know how to read, write, or even how to study, they didn't know the multiplication tables by memory, they had to use calculators for the easiest math problems (even simple additions and subtractions). And take in consideration that both my MS and HS had A+ grding... Public schooling here is hell, teachers here are not allowed to "teach" they just say whatever they had prepared for the class but they don't motivate students and they don't really have consequences for people not doing their homework. I was amazed that in HS people didn't know absolutely nothing about other countries, not even where said countries were located in the world.

Now, please don't take this the wrong way, I am only saying this because I believe we have to make our voices heard!! FCAT and similar tests are ruining public schools and it is a shame that kids can't even trust their own school for their education.

If I ever have children of my own, you bet they'll be going to private schools.

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

My kids go to Catholic school and they take standarized tests every year. We take the IOWA test.

As far as "cream of the crop", while you do have to take an entrance exam to go to the High Schools, the elementary /middle school have no entrance criteria.

My kids attend a Catholic school too and we take the Iowa test, however it's not the main focus of their education like it is in public school. (we were a public school family until last year)

How ever, I disagree with your statement of the elementary schools have no entrance exam. DS12's classmate is one of 10 siblings who just moved here from Kansas. He and his siblings had to take our entrance exam, one kid failed so he was not accepted into the school. He goes to the public school while 5 of the 10 attend the Catholic school. 1 goes to the all girls Catholic HS, and the rest are still at home.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Standards, I think, make sense. But they should be national. Whether it is the Common Core or some other set of standards, it doesn't make sense to me that some states require more out of their students than others.

Standardized tests, however, show a lack of imagination at the state and federal level when it comes to assessing student knowledge. And it shows a lack of trust of the school or the educator. If a teacher evaluates a student and indicates that student is proficient in a subject, that should be enough for the state. The student shouldn't be required to fill in little bubbles and write essays that get reviewed by a computer or a profession test scorer hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away.

 

[bunny]

Our school also pushes AP classes in high school. The sole purpose of these courses is to pass the AP exam at the end of the year. The classes are advanced and fast paced, but there is little deviation for discussion or exploration especially history classes which are mainly memorization.

Right now they offer academic, college prep, honors and AP. Next year they are eliminating college prep, so the only options will be academic or honors. In some classes my son is faster and some slower but the academic classes are usually reserved for the worst students. Either those students will now get lost in the shuffle or the middle students will get dumbed down. It has become all about the AP tests.

 

[SpecialK]

Don't forget that the curriculum is dictated by people who have never set foot in a classroom

That's not the case here. My husband is a high school teacher and he's spent the last four summers writing curriculum. I did the same when I taught junior high.

It's been my experience, both as a teacher and as a parent, that the standards required by testing influenced the skills addressed by the curriculum, but did not dictate how we taught.

 

[Duchie]

The current system does not work, I will agree with that. However, we need some sort of Benchmarking that can be applied to all schools on all states so that we can see issues and problems as early as possible. Benchmarking is an important aspect that is needed. It has to be standardized though otherwise comparing scores would be worthless!

I tend to agree more with this line of thinking. There are some pretty great teachers out there, but there are also some pretty crummy ones too. Same thing with schools. How do you weed out the bad teachers so that you can get more good ones? How do you identify the crummy schools so that effort can be put into making them better? I don't know. If testing is not the answer, then what benchmark/standards can be used to do this accurately?

 

[PeanutButterMom]

We are very fortunate that we live in a great, very small, a school district. PB is only in 1st grade, but every teacher I've encountered so far (at school events and PTO and the like) is great. Our class sizes are little, and the teachers genuinely care and challenge the kids. As far as I'm aware, while there are "standards", they don't teach to the test. PB is considered gifted (and we are starting testing for all that, which I'm not super excited about, but she loves tests because she's a weirdo ) and she asks "tangent questions" in class all the time. Sometimes her teacher will expound, and sometimes she'll have PB research on her own during "free time" and then share her info at an appropriate time.

We (my husband and I) researched long and hard when PB was in pre-K. I needed a school that would challenge her and give her the most opportunities. We toured half a dozen schools, public, private, and parochial, in our area before ultimately deciding that our public school would have the most resources for her. 2 years in and I know I made the correct choice.

We live on the very edge of our kick-butt district, and the neighboring one is truly awful, a "failing" district. I think the problem is, how to we get these schools to be not failing? Testing and more testing obviously isn't working. Why are some schools continuously failing, while others continuously excel? I know that's not the question of the OP but I can't help but wonder WHY.

 

[Schmeck]

AP Lit forces the students to be able to write and appropriate persuasive essay. My daughter has been getting A's on her college honors essays because of the skills she learned in that class.

 

[nuttylawprofessor]

Well not testing hasn't worked out so great for education, either.

I've got a class full of students who can't pass a basic writing composition test. They can't puzzle their way through a writing composition homework that is closely-modeled after the in-class exercise we completed together. They can't articulate the rules and reasoning from cases they've been working with since early September. Heck, they can't even follow the simple direction "type the following sentence as your first heading."

Creativity is great. But nobody is going to give a crap about your creativity if you can't express it in coherent sentences.

Has testing gone overboard? In some circumstances, absolutely. Has testing been used as the scapegoat for crappy teaching? Yes.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I am a retired teacher and I hate testing. It truly doesn't show anything about the student except whether s/he is proficient in testing. It doesn't show curiosity, research skills, love of reading, ability to think creatively, problem solving skills, etc. It shows whether s/he has mastered a certain set of skills.

To me education should not only be about teaching a set of skills, but encouraging all the things I mentioned above!

I want students to know and enjoy history because of what we learn about those who came before us and what we can learn about ourselves and how to apply what went before to what comes next.

I want students to know and enjoy science from a sense of curiosity and wanting to know how things work/go together--why they work--what would happen if.............

I want them to love reading all kinds of things--books, magazines, how-to, biographies, novels.............

I want them to enjoy writing for many purposes and WANT to do it.

I want them to enjoy math--not have anxiety about it. I want it to be fun and natural. I want them to know how to solve problems creatively and know why you should add, subtract, multiply or divide in a particular instance. Sometimes problems can be resolved in many different ways and still be "right." I want them to see that, too.

Great post! This is what I want for my children as well. I do feel as if some of it has been lost on "testing".

 

[SpecialK]

Well not testing hasn't worked out so great for education, either.

I've got a class full of students who can't pass a basic writing composition test. They can't puzzle their way through a writing composition homework that is closely-modeled after the in-class exercise we completed together. They can't articulate the rules and reasoning from cases they've been working with since early September. Heck, they can't even follow the simple direction "type the following sentence as your first heading."

Creativity is great. But nobody is going to give a crap about your creativity if you can't express it in coherent sentences.

Has testing gone overboard? In some circumstances, absolutely. Has testing been used as the scapegoat for crappy teaching? Yes.

If teachers were following the standards for writing, creativity would go out the window. The required writing is very formula driven.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I agree that the testing and scripted curriculum have gone too far. We are no longer attracting the best, most creative teachers (the ones who could really reach the most kids) because we have removed the trust and creativity from teaching.

 

[nuttylawprofessor]

If teachers were following the standards for writing, creativity would go out the window. The required writing is very formula driven.

GREAT! You know what else is formula-driven? Music. Plays. Architecture. Formulas don't kill creativity. Formulas give structure to creativity. You've got to learn the structure before you can get creative.

And when I no longer need to spend hours teaching college graduates how to use commas and apostrophes, maybe we can have longer, more productive discussions about substantive legal arguments.

 

[SpecialK]

GREAT! You know what else is formula-driven? Music. Plays. Architecture. Formulas don't kill creativity. Formulas give structure to creativity. You've got to learn the structure before you can get creative.

And when I no longer need to spend hours teaching college graduates how to use commas and apostrophes, maybe we can have longer, more productive discussions about substantive legal arguments.

That was my point. They should be coming to you more prepared if the standards were being followed.

 

[Mkrop]

My kids go to Catholic school and they take standarized tests every year. We take the IOWA test.

As far as "cream of the crop", while you do have to take an entrance exam to go to the High Schools, the elementary /middle school have no entrance criteria.

My kids go/went to Catholic grade school too. They take the Terra Novas. There is no teaching to the tests. There is a short review days beforehand. We do not have an entrance exam either at the K-8 level and our one high school does not have an entrance exam. We have also recently switched to the Common Core standards. We also have services to help kids with delays.

I also am on the Marketing Committee of our school and I can tell you that parents WANT to know the scores of these tests. How do we measure up against other schools, the public schools too. Unfortunately there is not one test that is taken so it is not easy to compare but yes parents ask us all the time how we score on these standardized tests.

I still dont get how "teaching to the test" is a bad thing. If certain grammar skills are on the test, and the teacher is teaching the grammar skills, isnt that a good thing???? If the test covers in 3rd grade, multiplication and the teacher is teaching multiplication, how is this bad? What am I missing?

Our teachers manage to teach the subject material and the kids do well on the standardized tests. So I am confused on the uproar

Also there really needs to be a way to weed out the bad teachers because they are out there. We have all had them. I, as well as my kids, have had awesome teachers, so dont get me wrong. I value and respect what teachers do, but we also have had some lousy teachers and they need to be out of the classroom, if not for testing how do we do it?????

 

[nuttylawprofessor]

That was my point. They should be coming to you more prepared.

Amen, brother/sister/other!

I'm tired of reading papers that make me fear for the future of the profession.

 

[Claudia1]

Indiana voters provided a major upset int he election this year by ousting the incumbent Superintendent of Schools that had millions to spend by a teacher with limited resources but grassroots support.

The ousted Superintendent's programs where totally based on testing and results, plus he stated he would eliminate music in schools since it could not be "tested". Teachers and wise parents spread the word for Glenda Ritz and she won decidedly with the platform of teaching.

Hope she can get things turned around!