Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Standardized Testing

Standardized testing is a problem for schooling and learning for so many reasons. In the article "Standards and Tests Attack Multiculturalism" by Bill Bigelow, he states that "test questions inevitably focus on discrete facts, but cannot address the deeper, multifaceted meaning of facts." Therefore, "one can master isolated morsels of fact and remain ignorant about the issues that give those facts meaning." This bothers me most about standardized tests because anyone who is good at taking tests and memorizing information will most likely do well on these tests. However, those of us who understand the basic concepts of the information and, for example, can't remember the date of which it happened will do horribly on these types of tests. Standardized testing doesn't allow the students to grasp the overall concept and importance of the events or ideas being taught in school because they are worried about the minuscule details which will be questions on the exams. Also, since teachers know that the students will be tested on these certain facts, the teachers will be more inclined to teach to the tests instead of expanding and explaining concepts more in depth. He also explains how these tests undermine multicultural education because, to the students, "if it were important it would be on the test." Therefore, teachers cannot teach a curriculum based on multicultural education because they don't have the time to educate their students about the culture and events of different people when they are time restrained to these tests. Also, the students won't see the information as important because they know that it won't be asked on the exams.

Furthermore, standardized testing is not going to help close the achievement gap. The No Child Left Behind Act has the right idea and hopes to rectify the correct problems in our education system, but the action of carrying out this bill is not succeeding. Holding the teachers accountable for their students by using standardized test scores is not going to help fix the problem because teachers will continue to teach to the test. However, teachers should be held accountable for because their is a need for better teaching, especially in the neediest school districts. The trouble with this problem is that teachers don't get paid enough to try harder and the districts that need the better teachers don't have enough money to pay for highly qualified staff. In the article "Evaluating 'No Child Left Behind'" by Linda Darling-Hammond, I agreed with the improvements of NCLB such as assessing students on their progress instead of using these standardized tests and giving teachers better salaries and working conditions. Now the question is how to implement these new improvements. The class had an idea of grading the students on a portfolio type of progression which I agree with, but what kind of grading system will be put into place? How do we give teachers in needy school districts more pay? If anyone has any ideas, feel free to express them. Hopefully, these changes can happen to benefit the students and close the achievement gap.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html
This shows how much farther away our country is from incorporating multicultural education. Texas is changing their curriculum to a more conservative view of history and cutting out even more historical information. Education already doesn't include so much history and culture in our curricula and Texas has decided that even more has to be cut out. They are molding education into what they believe students should learn in school and not the truth of all aspects of history and our life in the US. Take a look.

6 comments:

  1. I agree that a major set back of schools is the small amount teacher's are paid. The job entails so much dedication is required but teachers are among the most underpaid occupations. It's no wonder to me that most teachers quit within their first couple of years. I think without quality training and a salary to motivate we will continue to have the revolving door of teachers we read about this week. I think it is important for more funding of programs that are recruiting and developing high quality teachers to place and remain in the areas that need them the most.

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  2. I really agree about the teachers not getting paid enough and I relate to it from a personal standpoint. I have said I wanted to be a teacher since I was little, but in recent years I have been really considering other options. If I want to live a life like the one I have been raised in, having two parents who work in the corporate world, it will not be the most lucrative profession for me to go into. I just really think that society's views have to change to understand the importance of educating our children, corny but true, they are our future!

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  3. I also agree with the fact that teachers aren't getting paid enough. I had a teacher in elelementary school who was determined to effectively teach in the classroom. She would constantly make us aware of the money she was spending(out of her salary)on us. It was evident that money was not the sole reason she went into the field of teaching and her main purpose was for her students to learn and have fun while doing so.

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  4. The fact that standardized tests limit multicultural education is an important point that I hadn't considered yet. Of course, a teacher who is stuck teaching to a test has little leeway to implement education that is multicultural. This is an important aspect that should be focused on.

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  5. the no child left behind act does make people feel good but it also lowers the chances of those who are smarter than their peers a real chance to get a leg up on their peers. Competition is everything, if you look at the Japanese culture they seem to have it right by rewarding those who are smarter to go to a better school, although measuring genius is different because people are genius in different ways some are physical geniuses while other environmental some are even social and financial geniuses. Academics is not the only important subject.

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  6. What's the correlation between teacher pay/salary and student achievement? Start there and find out the answer to that question on teacher pay. Texas has always wanted to be on their own with their curriculum, etc. That comes back down to the question Kat posed in class about whether educational standards should be determined by the State, the state, the local government, or the schools.

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