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I have several in-laws who are teachers, and know a few other teachers. From what I heard from them, about a month or two before standardized test time, they would start cramming for the test. It's like they would switch gears from whatever they spent the rest of the year working on to suddenly needing to focus on what needed to be learned for the test.

 

My problem with it is this--we have state content standards, which dictates what needs to be taught each year in the classrooms. And the tests are structured around that content as well. So shouldn't the teachers be able to teach the content all year, and that will naturally prepare the students for the test? If they have to switch gears and teach something different, then what have they been teaching all year?

 

ETA: I don't have a problem with whatever they were teaching before, and what they teach in preparation for the tests...it's that the two are apparently incompatible, or that perhaps the former is inadequate test preparation is what bothers me.

Edited by gardening momma
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Well, honestly...I don't really. Teaching to the test is not the issue for me. I feel like if you set an objective for your lesson...as in what is it the child is supposed to learn...what should they know or be able to do as a result of the lesson... then it only makes sense that you should assess in some way whether or not you met that objective.

 

So if you want them to learn how to do double-digit multiplication then you teach them to do it and then you see if they can through assessment. That is called "teaching to a test". And it is not evil. It is good instruction. Otherwise you have teachers teaching children whatever it is they want or whatever it is they like to teach and NOT teaching what they don't like. Then there are gaps in learning and somethings that are "fun" to teach get taught over and over (like units on dinosaurs or the pilgrims) and things that are not "fun" to teach (like grammar) are skipped.

 

Setting objectives for a lesson then checking to see if the objective is met makes sense.

 

Where the issue TRULY lies is in the objectives themselves and this is where many homeschoolers truly take issue. For instance, most elementary schools will not teach your child history a la SOTW. They will teach them "social studies". So if you take issue with their objective you will naturally take issue with them teaching to a test for it.

 

And then there is the issue of course that objective tests are not the ONLY way to assess a student's knowledge and often not even the best way. But when you are talking abut assessing the knowledge of millions of children across the nation, it's the only way it CAN be done.

 

People will often say they think teaching to the test is evil because it means teachers don't have time to teach other things that aren't on the test. Well, number one, NO ONE has the time to teach everything that is worth learning including homeschoolers. How many threads are there about how there just aren't enough hours in the day to get through all the things we want to get through?

 

And number two, again it goes back to the objectives themselves... what exactly are they NOT teaching due to lack of time that they could or should be teaching and who decides?

 

For public schools the answer is your state department of education. They have a group that comes up with common learning objectives for every subject in every grade and the test is to make sure those objectives are being met. It's not perfect but, in a public school setting, how else do you hold anyone accountable for anything?

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In our ps teaching to the test has meant a drastic increase in what has been being taught (at the high school level anyway). I'm not upset with it at all - as long as the test has all the material one should have covered in the class.

 

When tests are dumbed down to where material on the test is LESS than what a school normally covers and a school cuts additional material since it isn't "on the test" then I have problems with it. This might, indeed, happen in good schools and at lower levels than high school.

 

I also have issues when things like History, Art and Music are cut out because they are "not on the test."

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My problem with it is this--we have state content standards, which dictates what needs to be taught each year in the classrooms. And the tests are structured around that content as well. So shouldn't the teachers be able to teach the content all year, and that will naturally prepare the students for the test? If they have to switch gears and teach something different, then what have they been teaching all year?

 

A lot of time the test prep focuses on *how* to take standardized tests, rather than the actual content that is supposed to be mastered.

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When I was teaching in elementary school we hated teaching to the test. But it happened. Sometimes it meant that we had to teach skills out of sequence, or push thru them faster than the students were ready just so we could cover everything that *might* be on the standardized test. THen, after the test was over, we would have to go back and reteach the skills we hurried over just so the kids would be exposed to them before the test.

 

One of the ladies I taught with recently retired and she told me how she hated teaching in the last few years because of the emphasis on standardized testing. When she began teaching 3rd grade the classes were much more relaxed. For example, if she wer reading a story about a girl who went square dancing she could take a day away from from reading and teach the kids to square dance. The goal was to increase their background knowledge so they could understand the story. The last years she was not allowed to do activities like that. In addition, the teachers at the same grade level were increasingly required to teach the same things to their classes at the same time so that all students had 'equal opportunity' to learn the same skills before the standardized testing. The pace was determined by what was on the standardized tests in the previous years not by how well the students were progressing on their own.

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The pace was determined by what was on the standardized tests in the previous years not by how well the students were progressing on their own.

My MIL taught 4th, sometimes 5th grade. In her last year of teaching (she's retired now), she taught her students what she thought would be on the test, according to what had been on last year's test. Which of course, wasn't on the test that year after all.

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A lot of time the test prep focuses on *how* to take standardized tests, rather than the actual content that is supposed to be mastered.

 

This puzzles me. At our school we don't spend any time teaching how to take the test. I suppose at the elementary levels they learn to fill in the circles, but by high school we just assume they know it.

 

SAT prep can focus on some test taking strategies as well as content, but SAT prep is separate from our school day. We don't teach test taking strategies for any other tests at the high school level at our school.

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In addition, the teachers at the same grade level were increasingly required to teach the same things to their classes at the same time so that all students had 'equal opportunity' to learn the same skills before the standardized testing.

 

This is starting to happen in our high school math classes. I don't like it at all. While it can mean a slower teacher needs to catch up and get with the program (happens) what it also means is whole classes that understand the material must slow down while whole classes that struggle with the material need to push on anyway. It doesn't benefit either class. Let the faster kids excel while allowing more time for the others to truly understand.

 

Oh wait, I just described what can be done while homeschooling. ;)

 

I have no idea what happens in our elementary schools with regards to pace or testing.

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My aunt just retired from many years of teaching in ps. She found that the increasing pressure to "teach the test" was reducing how much she was teaching. In her state, like many states, the test is a MINIMUM level test--but her teaching performance is based on whether EVERY student passes this minimum level. Her evaluation is better if every student in the class passes this minimum level exam than if she has one student not meet the hurdle but every other student in the class performing several grades above grade level. She said, for example, if she had everyone in the class where they could add and subract fractions (which was on the test) she would not move on to multiplying and dividing fractions (which was not on the test) because if that new information confused ONE student in the class it would reflect negatively on her (ignoring that everyone may be learning MUCH more).

 

She said that she felt that after the test was over she could finally "teach". Unfortunately, she said that many of the other teachers in the school did nothing for the rest of the year because "it wouldn't count."

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"Teaching to the test" isn't really just teaching them through the year and then seeing if they understand it through standardized testing. It usually involves dropping what the kids should be or are learning and having a big cram session on specific items that will be on the test. Sometimes it involves things they normally wouldn't be teaching that year! Schools will give up real learning and subject mastery to achieve those "excellent" ratings on tests. At the school my son attended last year, they not only spent weeks in class preparing the students for testing, but they set up an elaborate after school "boot camp" to get them ready for testing. The school hyped it as being so important that the poor kids were scared and stressed. This isn't a matter of "it's the only way they can assess all those children", it's a matter of content standards that are often out of touch with where children are developmentally and academically. I've had kids in public schools for the last 15 years and the decline of academics I've seen has gone right along with the increase in testing. My observation of "teaching to the test" was just one more reason that I chose to homeschool this year.

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"Teaching to the test" isn't really just teaching them through the year and then seeing if they understand it through standardized testing. It usually involves dropping what the kids should be or are learning Should be learning according to whom? That is the question. and having a big cram session on specific items that will be on the test. Sometimes it involves things they normally wouldn't be teaching that year! Well then your state has done it all wrong. The content standards are developed for each subject and each grade...the teachers teach them to the students...the test is designed to test those content standards. That is proper curriculum design. If the teachers are being told to teach list A but the test is over list B then someone is doing something wrong. Schools will give up real learning and subject mastery again, if this is what is happening at your school then I would question the people in charge. to achieve those "excellent" ratings on tests. At the school my son attended last year, they not only spent weeks in class preparing the students for testing, but they set up an elaborate after school "boot camp" to get them ready for testing. The school hyped it as being so important that the poor kids were scared and stressed. This isn't a matter of "it's the only way they can assess all those children", it's a matter of content standards that are often out of touch with where children are developmentally and academically. Therein lies the rub. Perhaps the content standards for your state were not carefully chosen? At any rate, more and more states are moving to the "common core" so everyone everywhere will be teaching the same things at the same time. I've had kids in public schools for the last 15 years and the decline of academics I've seen has gone right along with the increase in testing. My observation of "teaching to the test" was just one more reason that I chose to homeschool this year.

 

I got a job in an inner city school and my sole purpose was to get these 16yo students ready for the big state test. These kids could not put a coherent sentence together at 16 years old. I spent 6 months teaching them how to write good essays so they could pass the test and guess what? They PASSED but you know what else? They passed because they learned to write a good essay. I taught to the test. They learned to write an essay. We did not have time for fancy projects or movies or very many field trips. I understand that but they DID learn how to write a good essay so I feel it was successful.

 

This was more towards the beginning if the whole NCLB thing and up until then those kids had just been passed through the system which is why at age 16 they could NOT write sentences. But the pressure to pass this test motivated them and me. We saw it as a challenge and we met it head-on and those kids were high-fiving each other as they left the testing room because they were so proud of themselves.

 

It can work.

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I got a job in an inner city school and my sole purpose was to get these 16yo students ready for the big state test. These kids could not put a coherent sentence together at 16 years old. I spent 6 months teaching them how to write good essays so they could pass the test and guess what? They PASSED but you know what else? They passed because they learned to write a good essay. I taught to the test. They learned to write an essay. We did not have time for fancy projects or movies or very many field trips. I understand that but they DID learn how to write a good essay so I feel it was successful.

I don't have any objection to this. What I object to is when the teacher spends one half to two thirds of the year teaching "normally" and then switches to what they think will be on the test that year. (My experience here is with elementary students.) Now, if they know the class as a whole is deficient in writing, and perhaps the teacher hasn't covered that much that year, maybe they should focus on that. But it would have been better if they had worked on it throughout the year, yes?

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I don't have any objection to this. What I object to is when the teacher spends one half to two thirds of the year teaching "normally" and then switches to what they think will be on the test that year. (My experience here is with elementary students.) Now, if they know the class as a whole is deficient in writing, and perhaps the teacher hasn't covered that much that year, maybe they should focus on that. But it would have been better if they had worked on it throughout the year, yes?

 

Well yes, that's true. I guess I don't understand what you mean by teaching "normally" and then switching to what will be on the test. In my school now and in the district I left teachers had a list of what they were to teach that year and all of it was game for the test. There weren't two different lists of what to teach....one of things that will be on the test and one of things that won't. And the test is designed around the list of things they are to teach. So if they are teaching their assigned curriculum then teaching "normally" and "teaching to the test" are the same thing.

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Well yes, that's true. I guess I don't understand what you mean by teaching "normally" and then switching to what will be on the test. In my school now and in the district I left teachers had a list of what they were to teach that year and all of it was game for the test. There weren't two different lists of what to teach....one of things that will be on the test and one of things that won't. And the test is designed around the list of things they are to teach. So if they are teaching their assigned curriculum then teaching "normally" and "teaching to the test" are the same thing.

I know that the teachers here are aware of the state's content standards. I don't know how the schools go about making sure the teachers' curriculum and content standards match up, but one year my MIL was on a committee to select the math curriculum for her grade, and she would bring home several textbooks to examine. So I'm sure she compared them to the content standards. However, I got regular earfuls from her about how things went in her classroom, and I also heard from other elementary teachers around test time (standardized test) that seemed to indicate that they had to move into high gear for test preparation a month or more before the test. Whether they began teaching new content that hadn't yet been taught that year (that was included in the content standards) and that they felt they had to cram in order to fit it in before the test, or whether they felt they had to cram current, existing content into kids' heads before the exam, I don't know. I do know that from the accounts that I heard, things changed when testing drew near (a month or two away). Hopefully they didn't stress the kids by telling them they're cramming for the test.

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Teaching to the test is something getting hotly debated in my uni group at the moment.

Australia has been revamping their curriculum and the Government is trying to introduce a national curriculum. The government is also trying to make schools more accountable and so they have decided that the results a school receives in the National Test will be published on a website, plus school funding will depend on results.

This has had two major effects;

parents are shifting their kids to high scoring schools,

and teachers are trying to manipulate results to keep their jobs. This includes extensive 'coaching' on test taking, lots of time spent teaching things thought to be on the test , and goes as far as some schools asking low achievers not to come to school on test taking day and in the extreme few cases, teachers have managed to steal the test papers and coach entire classes on the answers .

 

To me these things are teaching to the test, not normal classroom assessment that should be a part of normal public school education.

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My aunt just retired from many years of teaching in ps. She found that the increasing pressure to "teach the test" was reducing how much she was teaching. In her state, like many states, the test is a MINIMUM level test--but her teaching performance is based on whether EVERY student passes this minimum level. Her evaluation is better if every student in the class passes this minimum level exam than if she has one student not meet the hurdle but every other student in the class performing several grades above grade level. She said, for example, if she had everyone in the class where they could add and subract fractions (which was on the test) she would not move on to multiplying and dividing fractions (which was not on the test) because if that new information confused ONE student in the class it would reflect negatively on her (ignoring that everyone may be learning MUCH more).

 

She said that she felt that after the test was over she could finally "teach". Unfortunately, she said that many of the other teachers in the school did nothing for the rest of the year because "it wouldn't count."

 

 

This is how it seemed to be in my kids' public school when they attended. And they did spend time teaching them how to take the test, but that might change after elementary school. They were also sent home with instructions to eat breakfast and get a good night's sleep for the test, which is the first thing ds1 said when they got off the bus, so obviously, they made that abundantly clear at the school. Normally, neither kid could tell me one single thing that went on at school! :lol: Two teachers also explained to me that each grade level's teachers had to meet weekly to make sure they would be covering the same things that week in all the classes.

 

ETA: Another thing that bothered me, was when I asked the principal a few questions about the curriculum and accelerated students, she pretty much told me that their main concern was to get all the students to pass the test. If your child could pass the test, then they didn't really need further attention. The resources were spent on the kids who weren't able to pass to bring them up to the standard.

Edited by thescrappyhomeschooler
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This was more towards the beginning if the whole NCLB thing and up until then those kids had just been passed through the system which is why at age 16 they could NOT write sentences. But the pressure to pass this test motivated them and me. We saw it as a challenge and we met it head-on and those kids were high-fiving each other as they left the testing room because they were so proud of themselves.

 

The biggest problem that I see is that testing is supposed to be a sample of the student's learning, it isn't supposed to cover every thing that they have learned or be an exhaustive summary of what knowledge they have. Testing just can't do that (from a psychological, "science of testing" background). Standardized testing in particular isn't a good test of the student's higher order thinking skills. There is so much that is important to learning that just doesn't come across well on a standardized test. If the test is all that they are focused on, then the teaching will be truncated and inadequate for some subjects. You can be taught how to read a passage and pick the right answers from multiple choice questions, without doing significant mental processing of the passage. There really isn't quite the equivalent short cut on a writing test, although teaching formulaic writing may be similar. On the other hand, once you get good at formulaic (five paragraph) writing, that can be a basis for branching off into more varied forms of writing. Multiple choice reading questions don't seem to be the same platform to moving into higher order thinking. From what I've seen subbing in elementary schools, there is a fair amount of time spent on test taking strategies, which don't actually teach to the underlying knowledge that the test is supposedly looking for, but just teach how to test well.

 

There are so many shortcomings to tests, and we went over them thoroughly when I was in my elementary ed classes. They have an important role in assessment, but they aren't the only or best kind of assessment. What is best is a wide variety of assessment strategies, both objective and subjective. This is what research into educational assessment shows, and what educational experts know, but that knowledge doesn't get into the educational legislation. Even as homeschoolers, most of us feel there are shortcomings to tests, that they don't always portray our children's actual knowledge, and we prefer to use tests as only a small part of how we assess our children's learning. I think a simple discussion of a passage can show more about what the kids understand about their reading, than does standardized test style questions.

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Teaching to the test so they keep their jobs and the school is accredited. This is a huge issue and fear. Everyone is fearful. It is crazy.

 

last year I worked at a ps for 3.5 months to help the students so they could pass the test. What was crazy, no one REALLY knew how to use me, and a few teachers really didn't let me help. IT was thier fear of me not knowing enough to help them PASS the test. It got better for me in a couple of classes as they realized really could help.

 

But yes teaching to the test is huge, but it all varies. Seriously the kids took several "practice" test, sometimes called benchmarks or SOL practice test. These were actually OLD test from previous years or questions from previous test. and again SERIOUSLY there were times I know the teachers were hoping that the questions on the practice would show up on the real thing.

 

And what is sad they had some good teachers, but they couldn't really teach because the test are so driven. Several teachers were really frustrated by it. The 7th grade teacher talked to me about the stuff they no longer taught, I think she had been there about 5 years. She said they use to teach finding volume for 4-5 figures, but they now only teach 3 maybe 4. But then what is sad when they get to 8th grade and above the teachers there think they should know the other 2-3 they haven't learned. It is crazy.

 

Confirmed that I am glad I hs my boys

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I'll just list my issues with it:

 

Science and history are almost completely ignored here until the 8th grade. This is so that math and reading can be focused on - there are no tests for science until 8th, and there is never a history test - so they don't bother. Social studies as taught here is a joke. I'm not religious and don't have a problem with the curriculum for that reason - what I have a problem with is the complete ignorance of the ps kids here about science and history as teenagers.

 

Even in science and history classes, FCAT practice is included. the textbooks have FCAT practice in them! And in the two months before the test- those classes focus on taking tests even in subjects that have nothing to do with the class.

 

8th grade is a year for the FCAT writing exam. The only two years I have seen anything in the way of writing coming out of the ps's is in 4th and 8th (the two writing test years), and then - as in my son's advanced language arts class, the only writing they teach is that which will fit what is asked for on the test. They require the kids write three paragraphs with 8 sentences EXACTLY each. The teachers care so much about formatting, that the actual writing suffers.

 

A ridiculous amount of time is spent on test taking skills that have nothing to do with actual learning. I'm sorry - but I spent 30 minutes with my son last year telling him some test taking strategies before he took a standardized test for the first time and he did great. He didn't need months and months of practice....

 

Lastly - ther eis an inordinate amount or pressure put on these kids from the first grade up about these tests. Kids go home having panic attacks and throwing up in the days leading up to the test, letters are sent home to parents begging them to feed them this and that and please have them sleep more,etc. After school activities are discouraged during test week. It's absolutely insane.

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I hate teaching to the test because of my experiences with it and my siblings' continued experiences. I still have 3 siblings in public school. I visited my family last year around Easter. There was still 2 months left in school, but my 14 year old sister had already taken her standardized test for the year. As a result, she got to watch movies for the rest of the year. She said she watched about 3 or 4 movies a day. I hate that once the "test" is over, school is over. This has been my experience in several different school systems, and it's ridiculous. It's one of the biggest reasons I am homeschooling, because it's such a waste of time.

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I hate teaching to the test because of my experiences with it and my siblings' continued experiences. I still have 3 siblings in public school. I visited my family last year around Easter. There was still 2 months left in school, but my 14 year old sister had already taken her standardized test for the year. As a result, she got to watch movies for the rest of the year. She said she watched about 3 or 4 movies a day. I hate that once the "test" is over, school is over. This has been my experience in several different school systems, and it's ridiculous. It's one of the biggest reasons I am homeschooling, because it's such a waste of time.

 

 

Yep - forgot to add that one!

An 8th grade girl last year, the older sister of one of my son's friends, was talking to me in May - in science (the first year they did science) all they had done since FCAT was watch Bill Nye the Science Guy videos. She said they had made it through 1/2 the text and that that was all they had time for.....:confused:

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Teaching to the test in our area has meant that everything that isn't typically included on standardized tests, is not worth learning. So, many of the high schools have virtually eliminated science labs, science fairs, projects of any kind and all field trips. The scientific method can't be tested on a multiple choice exam, a gazzilion skills in science, literary analysis, etc. can't be tested by multiple choice. So, Lit classes have been reduced to nothing more than a who, what, where when, approach...history - no more current events, no more discussion, no more trips to the court house for civics class, etc., nor more museum trips, yada, yada...as a matter of fact in order to make the kids get better at standardized testing, math and expository writing are the only two subjects in which the students ever take a non-multiple choice exam.

 

So, this is why teaching to the test is not working here. Teaching to the test is not "teaching to the assessment the teacher designed" it is teach to the multiple choice MEAPS, ACT's, and SAT's. An awful lot of kids can guess a bunch of answers correctly out of four choices. Those same kids very well may not be capable of doing the work the multiple choice question is supposed to represent.

 

Faith

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A lot of time the test prep focuses on *how* to take standardized tests, rather than the actual content that is supposed to be mastered.

 

When my dd12 was in elementary school, we were given a practice test website with instructions to have our children test every week. The idea was to get the children familiar with the format so that actual test day went more smoothly. We were also given test papers with circles for our children to practice filling in the circles correctly. I think that was 4th grade.

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Lynne, you bring up a very good point. My dad was a teacher for 40 years and he loved teaching until the last few years when testing became so widespread. He loved to give the more advanced students and other interested students more in-depth work. When testing started to become so important, he was told he wasn't allowed to do that anymore. All his efforts were to be put towards the kids who wouldn't do well on the tests (and often didn't care) and he felt that he was letting down the most capable and interested students "for the test". The students who had the potential to learn more wasted much of their school year.

 

Heather, I understand what you're saying but it's just not what really happens in many schools. Our state recently adopted Common Core standards and they'll still be spending endless hours trying to make sure every student passes the test while ignoring those who are ready to move on. My oldest son graduated from a public high school with both honor and merit diplomas, National Honor Society, AP Scholar and more and he regularly asks me why I didn't homeschool so he didn't "waste" so much time in school. My second son graduated at 16 with an honors diploma. Both of them said the state tests were "an insult to their intelligence" and they're sad they had to waste so much time preparing for them and taking them. At the high school level, they have the ability to give one on one attention to the students who need extra help passing the tests and that's great. As you said, your sole purpose was to help students with their essay writing. You taught them what they needed to know. Unfortunately, at the elementary level, the whole class is stuck at the level of the slowest students.

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