Education Department’s obsession with test scores deepens

[proud2BlibKansan]

Apparently it’s not enough for the Obama administration that standardized test scores are now used to evaluate students, schools, teachers and principals. In a new display of its obsession with test scores, the Education Department is embarking on a study to determine which parts of clinical teacher training lead to higher average test scores
Education Secretary Arne Duncan speaks at the U.S. Conference of Mayors winter meeting luncheon in Washington, last month. (Cliff Owen) among the teachers’ students.

This is explained in a notice placed in the Federal Register:

“Teachers who have experienced certain types of clinical practice features and who have completed those features are hypothesized to produce higher average student test scores than teachers who have not done so. Using a randomized controlled trial, students will be randomly assigned to a pair of teachers in the same school and grade level, one of whom will have experienced the type of clinical practice of interest (‘treatment’) while the other will not have experienced the feature (‘control’). Average test scores of the two groups will then be compared.”

The Education Department’s new study takes as fact the notion that standardized test scores tell us something important about how well a teacher does his or her job. They don’t, assessment experts say (over and over), but why let the facts get in the way?

more . . . http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/education-departments-obsession-with-test-scores-deepens/2012/02/06/gIQAP7yuyQ_blog.html

[bluestateguy]

1. The Education Department should be abolished

Too much federal meddling.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. We need the DOE

but it needs to be scaled back.

[bluestateguy]

3. It doesn't work that way

As soon as you create a federal agency, they have an institutional interest in meddling. In part because they need to justify their existence.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. The DOE oversees Head Start, Title I, IDEA and several other federal programs.

And they enforce civil rights regulations as they apply to education.

We aren't ready to give any of that up.

We need the DOE.

[msongs]

4. want higher scores? OPEN book tests. that really enhances learning boys and girls because....

you get a question, you search your knowledge for as much as you know already, then look up additional information to find a great answer.

THAT is true learning.

[immoderate]

6. They're teaching teachers how to teach to the test?

Pretty nuts.


--imm

[Starry Messenger]

7. My obsession with dumping Duncan is deepening.

If I wasn't witnessing all this happening in our lifetimes, I would think it was satire.

[knitter4democracy]

8. Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, that's amazingly stupid!

A study starting from a biased place. How shocking.

I swear, someone is seriously benefiting from all this testing crap, and it sure as heck isn't teachers or students.

[L. Coyote]

9. Testing is a very profitable business, and profit makers have their eyes on all of education.

Charter schools are also for-profit enterprises, and the perception of failing public schools is in their financial interest.

[knitter4democracy]

11. Not all charters are for-profit.

I worked for one last year that was managed by the local school district (it's their alternative high school that was spun off as a semi-independent charter several years back). I think that's a great model, personally, but there are for-profit companies out there trying to run charters, and that's just a nightmare.

[MichiganVote]

10. Yes well the billionaires who give oh so much shit about poor kids want to be sure

that the needle they supposedly must pass thru at death is a little bit larger because they concern themselves with..uh..data.

[sulphurdunn]

12. I decided to use standardized test scores

to assess the state of the Union. The data confirms that we rank near the bottom of developed republics. I think I might start using 3rd grade reading scores to determine which investment bankers to throw into prison.