TAAS tests and promotion

[BaylorBean]

It is actually the TAKS and please don't SPAM

[risingstar]

Originally Posted by BaylorBean

It is actually the TAKS and please don't SPAM

Right.

[Kevin]

Political spam?

I personally think (and all the teachers can be mad at me) that high stakes testing has been great for our school systems and students.

At least locally, this high stakes testing has caused a HUGE shakeup in our schools -- and that's a good thing.

I think it's been directly responsible for the rise of the KIP acadamies and other high quality charter schools in the urban areas where before, the alternative was out-of-district transfers and long bus (public transportation) rides to class.

While our traditional schools have continued to do poorly (and many will probably eventually be shut down due to their poor performance), charter schools have really moved in and taken over and the results have been great. It seems that contrary to the belief of many of our traditional public school administrators, people of lower socio-economic means can perform as well (or better) than their suburban counterparts. The aforementioned KIP Academy, located in, and primarily serving an almost exclusive minority population in probably the worst part of town (I believe the school is something on the order of 96% minority) actually tested higher than any other middle school in the state of Oklahoma -- that includes both OKC and Tulsa's magnet schools which are supposed to be where the best and brightest are supposed to go.

At any rate, I think that these high stakes tests and the extreme difference in pass/fail rates has finally given parents and students the ability to really see a tangible difference in the different options available to their kids. That may or may not have been the aim of that legislation, but that was the outcome.

These state tests, in my opinion, aren't a bad deal at all if they can produce the same sorts of results.

[AlphaFrog]

I remember having a teacher who used to judge his performance on the absence of C grades. He said that A students are always going to be A students, and F students are always going to be F students, but C students are those who could have gotten A's & B's if the material was presented right. I don't know how much merit there is to that, but it's an interesting concept.

[tld221]

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

I remember having a teacher who used to judge his performance on the absence of C grades. He said that A students are always going to be A students, and F students are always going to be F students, but C students are those who could have gotten A's & B's if the material was presented right. I don't know how much merit there is to that, but it's an interesting concept.

you know, i can agree with that.

but isnt it legit that C students could just as well get D's and F's if they really didnt give a damn?

and yeah, how bout an award for weirdest SPAM?

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by tld221

you know, i can agree with that.

but isnt it legit that C students could just as well get D's and F's if they really didnt give a damn?

and yeah, how bout an award for weirdest SPAM?

Well, the thing about his class, was that he had a "if you don't do the homework, you can't pass, and if you do the homework, you can't fail" policy. Homework was to complete the study guide for the test. The study guide was just about word for word what the test was. And, as long as you DID the homework, you got an A+. He didn't actually read your homework, figuring that you're shooting yourself in the foot for the test if you didn't do it right. This was also a required religion course that had no basic, regular and advanced levels, so he had to make it passable for all.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

Well, the thing about his class, was that he had a "if you don't do the homework, you can't pass, and if you do the homework, you can't fail" policy. Homework was to complete the study guide for the test. The study guide was just about word for word what the test was. And, as long as you DID the homework, you got an A+. He didn't actually read your homework, figuring that you're shooting yourself in the foot for the test if you didn't do it right. This was also a required religion course that had no basic, regular and advanced levels, so he had to make it passable for all.

The only thing that's weird about this to me is how unlike ed. school thought this guy's assessments were.

He assessed knowledge, which I think we should do more of, but teachers are constantly bombarded with the need to teach "higher level thinking skills," so teaching in a way that assessment only came from testing over exactly what was on the study guide would be bad, bad, bad in the eyes of many education professors and state and local curriculum guides and policies.