Quote:
Originally Posted by KSig RC
Charges of "teaching to the test" are inane and generally incorrect - what requires this much time?
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If the tests are good, I agree with you.
When you have a valid curriculum test carefully aligned with what teachers are supposed to teaching and appropriate for the methods they are supposed to be using, the test at the end should measure student learning and shouldn't need a bunch of crammed in test specific teaching.
But oftentimes, the curriculum and methods that teachers have been taught and required to use do not match up with what will be tested, and so, they are directed as a separate exercise to review or cram certain information in before the test.
I'm not to the SWTX Belle level that the whole system should be thrown out, at least I'm not today, but I think the present system needs huge reform.
As much as I take the teachers' "side" 95% of the time, I think good tests are essential to reform, and the "testing isn't really education" stuff is part of what is holding progress back. What you do with kids everyday for 180 days should somehow be measurable. It's certainly measurable in the tax dollars spent on it. The tests we have now may be a part of the problems, but GOOD tests are probably part of the answer.