Presidential Visit

[LeslieAGD]

President Bush is visiting a Southfield school in Michigan today talking about education. And normally, I just flip the channel, but since I'm an education major/future teacher, I just had to see what he had to say. All I can say is that this is why this a-hole is a politician and not an educator. One thing he said is that he claims that educators who are against assessment tests must have something wrong with their curriculum and their teaching...argh!!! Okay sorry, just had to vent! If you're going to come talk about how good the district is, don't come and end up criticizing the teachers.

[DeltAlum]

Used to work in Southfield.

I'm not going to get into politics, etc., but I think assessment tests are a terrible idea.

They force teachers and administrators to worry so much that they end up teaching students how to pass the test -- not knowledge of the subjects.

My son's high school graduating class (450-500 students) has five National Merit Finalists (6 semi-finalists), almost 10% in the National Honor Society and numerous state and national award winners in organizations like DECCA, Thespians, etc. Forty-nine seniors carry over a 4.0 weighted GPA. Nearly that many will receive the "Honors Diploma" which means all of their core classes were Honors or AP classes. This year's state "Teacher of the Year," is on the faculty.

It is in what is considred by educators (whomever makes this kind of judgement) to be in one of the top ten public school systems in the country.

They don't teach to pass the test.

The school is listed as Average.

Something's wrong with the system. It isn't the teachers and/or curriculum. Maybe it's the tunnel visioned specialists who don't understand that there is life outside their own chosen field who make the tests!

[Betarulz!]

I have to agree with both of you.

There are so many underlying aspects to the reasons why assesment tests aren't reliable, accurate, or worth it.

DeltAlum brings up good points in not teaching to pass the test...I know from my own experience after about 7th grade assesment tests were brought up as an afterthought. The teachers basically took the attitude that this was taking up their class time that they could have spent teaching other things. Never did they make it out to be a big deal...and I think that a lot of people ended up not taking them seriously b/c the teachers weren't. That probably hurt scores...does that mean that my 8th grade history teacher was a horrible history teacher...absolutely not. Same thing for my Junior AP English Teacher who is in the top three teachers ever for anyone who ever had him. Did he really care about our State Writing assesments? NOT AT ALL. He would much rather had us continue our discussion of The Great Gatsby, then have to spend a week helping us prepare essays over the most ludicrous topics that had no relevance to anything we were doing in class.

With my own experience, and I bet that Delt could ask his own children, I think that most of the better schools don't place any importance on the tests. The reverse of this is that the poorer schools put too much emphasis on the tests. Teaching to the test doesn't help any of those kids in the long run.

Obviously there are tons of economic factors/school funding/inability to get qualified teachers/academic tracking issues that I could go on about (I like being a Sociology major!) but I have a Chemistry final in 3.5 hours!

In conclusion "Assesment tests bad, and so is 'Dubya' "

[juniorgrrl]

I'm kind of split on this issue. On the one hand, it does encourage teachers to only teach to pass the tests.

But on the other hand, in Louisiana at least, the tests are so incredibly easy that if you don't pass them you should NOT be promoted. The essay I remember writing was nothing obscure or difficult - I think it was something about how to bake a cake. It was basically checking to see if you could put your thoughts in a logical order. The social studies test was basic facts - when was the United States founded; what is the difference between an import and an export, etc.

In areas with poor school systems, its sometimes necessary for standardized tests, to see if the students are learning anything at all. In a sense, a teacher's test is biased if she knows she's taught poorly (or maybe doesn't realize this) and therefore made her tests to pass anyone who has written their name correctly.

Standardized tests do have their place. Yes, they are greatly overemphasized in many school systems. But the quality of school systems varies so widely around the country, its necessary to have some sort of equalizing factor. For example, there have been people in LA that make cases over the fact that they can't get the TOPS scholarship (which requires a 2.5 and a 20 ACT), even though they have a 4.0, because their ACT score (from more than one test date) is a 16. Hmmm...Makes you wonder what kind of school the go to if its that easy you can make all As, and still not even achieve the state average on the ACT. Yes, there are people who just "don't test well" but a lot of those skills can be learned through practice. I think that both things together can be a measure of whether or not the school is doing its job well.

[Coramoor]

I...totally disagree.

Standardized tests is the only way to fairly gauge what level students are on. I'm not that far out of highschool, and I can remember the tests I took fairly well.

The questions weren't exactly difficult. They were all either common knowledge (or should have been) or were logic questions.

The english section had basic word meanings, some you had to mark a syn or ant. other's you had to figure out what it meant from context clues...doesn't require rocket science.

The math section. Addition, subtraction, mult., and division. You're in highschool when you take this test folks...I finished two levels of calc by my senior year, surely it isn't expecting too much of the kids to test them on their adding abilities.

Reading section. I remember reading the same damn stories on every single standardized test. One about the the chinese chess playing girl, and the other about the boy in Texas waiting on his brother.

The writing part. My english teacher spent a week on how to write an essay (not how to write the specific essay they asked you to write). I'm glad she did, b/c otherwise I would have been screwed in college english and history. It's amazing how many college students don't know how to write an essay.

The tests are hardly biased. After six, eight, ten years of school everything on them should be general knowledge. If it's not, it's no that the test is bias, it's the students fault.

[Betarulz!]

Originally posted by Coramoor
I...totally disagree.

Standardized tests is the only way to fairly gauge what level students are on. I'm not that far out of highschool, and I can remember the tests I took fairly well.

The questions weren't exactly difficult. They were all either common knowledge (or should have been) or were logic questions.

The english section had basic word meanings, some you had to mark a syn or ant. other's you had to figure out what it meant from context clues...doesn't require rocket science.

The math section. Addition, subtraction, mult., and division. You're in highschool when you take this test folks...I finished two levels of calc by my senior year, surely it isn't expecting too much of the kids to test them on their adding abilities.

Reading section. I remember reading the same damn stories on every single standardized test. One about the the chinese chess playing girl, and the other about the boy in Texas waiting on his brother.

The writing part. My english teacher spent a week on how to write an essay (not how to write the specific essay they asked you to write). I'm glad she did, b/c otherwise I would have been screwed in college english and history. It's amazing how many college students don't know how to write an essay.

The tests are hardly biased. After six, eight, ten years of school everything on them should be general knowledge. If it's not, it's no that the test is bias, it's the students fault.

Coramoor, I understand what you mean, but there is plenty of data showing the bias towards many different groups: Minorities, students living in poverty, those from working class families, those from rural areas...the list goes on. The thing is, not so much with the ACT and SAT, that tests have to make assumptions about what is "normal". An example that my sociology professor used was from a state assessment of second graders (I want to say that it was Virginia, but I don't think it was). One of the questions was something like

"Where do you buy bread from?"
A: The gas station
B: The grocery store
C: The book store
D: The playground

Sounds like a fairly simple question, but it makes assumption about the type of area the student lives, and what they've experienced. A student from the inner city, might not have an idea of what the grocery store because there isn't a typical grocery near them...they might get their bread from the convenience store at the gas station, thus making that answer seem perfectly valid when it wasn't what was being looked for by the testers.

Most test writers will tell you that it is impossible to write a test devoid of any bias towards someone.

Another interesting bit of research was done by Claude Steele. He discovered that there is a "Stereotype vulnerability" that exists for minorities, and that can be artificially created. Basically he gave African-American students and white students the same test. To half the test takers he told them that is was just for some research about how people take tests, and in another group he told them that this test was diagnosing intelligence and future potential. Now originally, all the students were undergrads at Stanford. What he discovered was that in the sessions where he told the test takers that the test was a measure of their intelligence he saw the normal "test gap" (about a 15% lower score) between the minorities and the white students. However in the other group, blacks did the same as whites. The interesting thing was that he could create the gap between any two groups. He could tell white males that Asian Males usually scored very well on test and would then see a gap in the scores. Steele's conclusion is that testers in the group that is supposed to do worst often will become too careful, will second guess themselves, and try to overcome their percieved inferiority, and in turn "psyche themselves out" in trying to do so, and this process is what creates the gap. All very intriguing, and demonstrative of human nature.

That's my current $.02 for now...this really only touches the tip of the iceburg of a variety of factors that exist in education.

[Coramoor]

Coramoor, I understand what you mean, but there is plenty of data showing the bias towards many different groups: Minorities, students living in poverty, those from working class families, those from rural areas...the list goes on. The thing is, not so much with the ACT and SAT, that tests have to make assumptions about what is "normal". An example that my sociology professor used was from a state assessment of second graders (I want to say that it was Virginia, but I don't think it was). One of the questions was something like.

I just don't feel those are valid reasons. I fit in to quite a few catagories you listed, and I didn't feel the test was biased against me in anyway.

Testing is made to test everyone on the same general knowledge, but like you said some people pysch themselves out...I still think it is the only fair and accurate way to gauge someone's knowledge and learning ability.

[Peaches-n-Cream]

I always liked standardized tests in grammar school. I always performed in the top 1% or 2%. I never felt like my future rested upon my score on these tests which probably removed any stress or tension from the testing experience.
I had the experience of attending a competitive private school from seventh grade through twelfth. In order to gain admission, a student needed to pass a test. We knew the significance of the SATs, but we weren't trained to take them. We were taught the importance of a well rounded education. It seems that when students are trained specifically to take these standardized tests, they don't learn to think for themselves.