How Concerned are you about... (rant)

[TheApprentice]

this country's government ever increasing STANDARDIZATION! Standardized testing every year for grades 3rd through 8th. Standardized test in order to graduate high school. Compliance by school districts from the federal government's new grant program (no compliance - no funding) to have more standardized curriculum. I feel like people are in some haze, walking around in a fog to agree to any of this. What do we want, all children learning the exact same thing, at the exact same time. It sounds like a bunch of robotons walking around.

 

And with all this standardization, will home school kids be able to assimilate if they want to go back to school, particularly high school, without having to start at the 9th grade level in courses no matter what they did previously, because they didn't follow the school's standardized curriculum. It really is getting rather tiresome and frustrating:angry:

 

O.K. now I just need to get my chocolate fix.:001_huh:

[Melinda in VT]

And with all this standardization, will home school kids be able to assimilate if they want to go back to school, particularly high school, without having to start at the 9th grade level in courses no matter what they did previously, because they didn't follow the school's standardized curriculum. It really is getting rather tiresome and frustrating:angry:

 

I have mixed feelings about standardization, but I actually think it would help homeschoolers who wanted to return to public school, because they could be assured of at least knowing what was expected.

 

Right now, even if you are trying to keep in step with the public school, it only takes a move to be completely out of step again.

[2cents]

On my idealistic level, it concerns me because along with standarization we seem to be consistently lowering the bar. On my realistic level I understand that it is an efficient method of gathering data and provides a framework for what is expected from a system of mass education. Testing is vital considering the numbers that institutional education deals with.

 

As a homeschooler, I give standardized tests annually but only use it as a diagnostic tool to see where we may need more focus or to reassure myself that we are doing well. I don't see it as a precise or perfect measure nor do I tailor the majority of our curriculum with it in mind.

[kalanamak]

t What do we want, all children learning the exact same thing, at the exact same time. It sounds like a bunch of robotons walking around.

 

 

I'm all for a basic education, and I don't feel like a robot if I know the countries of the world, the three branches of our federal government, and what an adverb is. My gripe it teaching to the test. School, while definitely work, can be interesting and tolerable, just a job can be grim or worthwhile. Teaching to the test seems to just ossify teachers and make the children more sure than ever that school is a drag, and life is only lived on the weekends.

 

Make the tests of BASIC things. GED level understanding. That way, a high school diploma doesn't just mean "passed along because they kept from being expelled".

 

Make it a pass/fail, so schools aren't flogging their students over learning the test. Have remedial classes with extra help.

 

Local school politics are horrible. I am disgusted by the number of supers one large district near me has gone through, and how much severance pay has gone with them when they were told they could quit or be fired. I would rather there be a standard minimum set by someone who isn't gunning for one or two years here, and then another brown-nose up the ladder to an even bigger district. I trust the Core Knowledge Foundation heads and shoulders above the local climber who gets a heck of a lot more salary than me, and who seems to be more peripatetic than the average flea on a long-nailed dog.

[Tiberia]

I think they are standardizing because many/most ps kids aren't learning much in school. By standardizing, they force teachers to teach to the test, inhibit truly creative teachers, and level the playing field to the lowest common denominator. If you are homeschooling, your kids will probably sail through standardized tests because they are actually learning something at home.

 

I just got my Kindergartener's ITBS test results in the mail yesterday. I did NOTHING to teach to the test. I didn't even teach her test-taking skills before the test, because I wanted it to be a true evaluation of her and our homeschooling year. I was a little nervous. But, she scored at a 3rd grade level for all areas combined, and a 4th grade level for language (reading aloud pays off!). She's a smart kid, but not a genius. I'm a good teacher, but not a genius. I just think homeschooling works way better than ps, and it will prove itself out in tests.

 

Here in WA, they keep changing the standardized tests required for graduation because the kids aren't passing them. It's a mess. I'm just going to quietly keep homeschooling my kid, and trust it's best for her. Yes, the whole standardization thing bothers me too.

[Parrothead]

 

Right now, even if you are trying to keep in step with the public school, it only takes a move to be completely out of step again.

Even with public school kids this happens. A move from district to district, state to state or even in my case country to country keeping up is hard. In 5th grade I went from learning times tables in NY to learning fractions in SC.

 

To keep kids from going through what I and other military brats went/go through is the only reason I would consider supporting national curriculum. But there are way way too many pitfalls with one.

[EKS]

I personally think that having a common curriculum for the nation's public schools will prove to be more beneficial than it is harmful. As for standardized testing, I think annual assessment in all grades (not just 3rd-8th) is important. I test my kids annually and find that having the results of those tests to be a helpful piece of information. If my kids were in public school, I'd welcome that testing and would have my children tested privately if they weren't tested in school.

[edithcrawley]

:iagree: with the previous posters about the benefits of some form of standardization. I'm not saying that every single school in America should be talking about the exact same topic on the exact same day or anything like that, but there should be some basic things that are taught in all the schools. Also, with the continued "dumbing down" of the standards in schools, things won't get much better-as it is, the students in better parts of town get a much better education than the students from the poor parts of town-if standardization can help avoid that, then I'm all for it. As it is, the gap between the haves and have-nots has gotten bigger.

 

However, like many of the other posters, I think that the whole "teaching to the test" craziness has got to stop. I wish the standardized testing for kids in school was formatted more like the ACT exam. Most of that (aside from some of the math and vocab parts) was able to be answered without much prior knowledge, all you really needed to do was read the paragraph or look at the graphs (for the science portion), and try to figure out an answer based on the information given along with a bit of reasoning. While students need to know basic facts (mult. tables, some history stuff, etc.), I think they'd be much better served by being taught how to learn-how to do basic reasoning and analyze situations. I hope all that I wrote was clear.

[Hunter's Moon]

this country's government ever increasing STANDARDIZATION! Standardized testing every year for grades 3rd through 8th. Standardized test in order to graduate high school. Compliance by school districts from the federal government's new grant program (no compliance - no funding) to have more standardized curriculum. I feel like people are in some haze, walking around in a fog to agree to any of this. What do we want, all children learning the exact same thing, at the exact same time. It sounds like a bunch of robotons walking around.

 

And with all this standardization, will home school kids be able to assimilate if they want to go back to school, particularly high school, without having to start at the 9th grade level in courses no matter what they did previously, because they didn't follow the school's standardized curriculum. It really is getting rather tiresome and frustrating:angry:

 

O.K. now I just need to get my chocolate fix.:001_huh:

 

I was talking to my PS Biology teacher yesterday and we were talking about standardized tests and how private/home schoolers aren't required to take them. His children went to a private school and weren't required to take them and he admitted to me it is a lot easier to teach without them because the kids are taught to test, not to learn.

I heard private schools might soon be required a standardized test to graduate here in Massachusetts. The private schools around here aren't required to take it and now "they" are saying their diplomas shouldn't be given as much weight. Bologna!!

 

ETA: When the MCAS (Mass. Standardized tests) first came out in the '70s (?), teachers took them, and most did not pass. Enough said.

[Hannah C.]

The problem with standardized testing is that kids fail those standardized tests to graduate from high school. I graduated from public hs in 2007, and I had to take the TAKS tests (TX standardized tests). The history test is ridiculously dumbed down. The English test forces you to learn certain types of inane writing which you never used before the TAKS test and that you will NEVER use again. Science and math were all right from what I remember, but probably could have been harder.

 

Yet kids fail those tests, even with the low level of achievement they require. That scares me, and makes me understand why those tests are in place to begin with. The standardized testing movement tries to ensure that kids are actually learning and won't be able to graduate hs not knowing how to read. I don't think standardized tests are the optimal way to do this. BUT the optimal way to do this would never be done, because it requires WAY too much staff, money, and "subjective" oversight. Standardized tests present a pretty, though false, idea of accountability which hurts school districts, teachers, students. But what can the alternative be?

[TheApprentice]

I have many problems with standardized tests. One problem I have is with the premise that there is such a thing as "standardized tests" because most are biased. There is no phantom "norm". Usually the questions are ones that would be familiar to those with more privileged backgrounds. I totally disagree with the cramming of information just to take a test for the purpose of school systems getting great scores and just "see how much we've improved". There is too much pressure to do well, and with said pressure the opposite usually happens. Not very many children excel with too much pressure. Children are losing their desire to learn. As soon as you focus on taking a test, passing a test, how well did I do on the test, real learning stops.

 

I'm going with SOTW Vol. 1 next year with my 7 yr. ds, but not much of that info., if any, would be on any standardized test for that level. I actual believe less would be more.

[Photo Ninja]

One issue that I don't think anyone has addressed yet is how the government, local, state and/or federal, wants to tie more than just student evaluation to the tests. They want to tie teacher evaluation to how students score on the standardized tests. This pretty much forces teachers to teach to the test even more than they have before since their salaries and jobs may be on the line. Of course a teacher will spend time making sure the class has the skills to be tested. Teachers want to keep their job and get their raise.

 

The standardized tests are actually a test of how well a teacher teaches students what is on the test, not how well a teacher teaches or how much a student knows.

 

The other problem with many standardized tests is that they are designed to have some students score below average, others at average, and others above average (or below, at and above grade level). Most are scored as percentages, so it is not possible for all the students taking the tests to score above grade level since the scores (percentages) are compared to other students' scores, not to a set standard. Some tests do score the student against the test only, so those tests will allow every student taking the test to score high, but most standardized tests don't do that. So by design, some students can not score at grade level. That is a problem that must be solved if a standardized test is to be accurate, and must be changed if teachers are evaluated based on students' test scores.