For all the teachers at DU....

[one_voice]

I have a question. The news was on, I wasn't paying much attention, but my son was sitting here watching and out of no where he says "teaching to test was the worst thing they ever did".

So I asked why he thought that (mind you he never said anything while in school)he said, that teaching that wasn't a good way to prepare for college. He said often, students would ask about something and the teacher would say "don't worry about that it's not on the test". He said not all teachers would do that, but many did. He said he thought there were lots of things left out that were important just because it wasn't on the test.

He said it wasn't fair to teachers or students. But like I said many teachers would teach more than what was on the test.

As teachers do you have many students that feel this way of teaching isn't a good thing? And is my understanding that teachers don't like it either correct?

I was really surprised to my son say that. And it made me wonder how many other students feel that way.

Shouldn't there be some kind of testing to make sure kids are learning? I'm not a teacher so I don't know. I know we need to make sure at risk students and students that need a little extra help don't fall through the cracks, what I don't know is how we go about doing that.

Like I said I'm not a teacher, so your opinion (and that of students/parents) is who I want ideas from.

Thanks.

p.s. and it would be greatly appreciated if you'd just over look my horrible grammar and writing skills. :blush:

[dkf]

1. Is that what teaching to the test means? Every other question is avoided as irrelevant? I

Maybe that is what teachers say when they don't know the answer?

[one_voice]

4. I don't know if that's what it....

means. But if that's what teachers are instructed to do, it's unfair to the teachers and the students. IMO.

Not all students learn the same way. For example, when I was in school (yes Fred Flintstone was my classmate)I did very well in Algebra, it was a breeze for me. Geometry not so much, it was like I had some kind of block and just couldn't get it. I stayed after school one day, and the teacher explained it to me differently than he'd done for the rest of the class. And it was as if a light went on, I got it. I just needed it explained in a different way. I'll never forget that teacher did that for me. He took the time to teach me a different way--if you will.

I think teaching to the test (if it means what I think it means), takes away that part of teaching. Allowing a teacher to recognize the differences in each student, and address it.

[immoderate]

10. My ninth grade English teacher had us diagram sentences from James Joyce.

It was a puzzle for students to solve. It is a tool that promotes thinking and communication. It took me quite well through college grammar courses, and put its mark on my ability to write. I don't expect that every teacher will do that, but I'm happy that mine could.

The "pass the test" mentality makes education something to get through, not an experience to grow on.

--imm

[WinkyDink]

2. We've had "Final Exams" since forever. Standardized-Test makers ask that all individuality be tamped

down. Even Standardized Writing Tests ask their graders to look for "markers" (e.g., 5 paragraphs; proper indentation).

But if your job tenure and your pay raises depended on your students' scores, you're da*n straight you'd teach to the test as much as you could.

[Fire1]

3. Exactly! Although, NOW, pay raises have little to do with it,

since most districts were laying off, due to lack of funds. This new funding from D.C. is only a band-aid or temporary solution to the fiscal problems. Teachers' now are just trying to stay employed!

[one_voice]

5. I hope you didn't think I was...

insulting teachers. I wasn't (see post #4), I think it's incredibly unfair to teachers and students. I used a personal experience that I think goes to the individuality point.

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. There should be and always will be testing....

>>>>>Shouldn't there be some kind of testing to make sure kids are learning? >>>>>>

... to make sure kids are learning.

"Teaching to the test" is a relatively new phenomenon. The federal gov't established conditions for federal funding about 10 years ago that required states to test kids regularly on certain subject areas. Low scores would have financial consequences to the states and local districts. Long story short: schools, districts and states want to get scores as high as possible so.... not surprisingly ....all sorts of gaming goes on , at every level (teacher, principal, district, SEDs) to produce the highest possible scores. Teachers find themselves... they are generally "encouraged" to do this by their superiors.... doing test-prep and not actual teaching.

A related concept is "high-stakes testing". Meaning there are significant consequences to schools that get low scores and to teachers who work in those schools ( closing of schools, denial of tenure, firings, etc.) This is pretty much the essence of Obamacation.

It s a bad idea which reflects the simplistic understanding of a complex problem as befits one who has never in his life attended pubic school and whose children have never in their lives attended public school.

Again, none of this is a knock against testing. Testing is good. Testing is necessary. A teacher that does not test is not really teaching. And a school that doesn't test is not really a school.

The problem is the POLITICIZATION of testing by POLITICIANS.

You're grammar looks pretty good from here. But I'm on a very short vacation, so you'll cut me some slack.

Hope this helps.

[Recursion]

7. Teaching to the test may be new but learning to the test is not

I was in high school in the mid-90s. The teacher would start to talk about something, someone would ask "will this be on the test?" If the teacher said no, the students tuned out immediately.

[one_voice]

11. Yes, your post helped....

I remember when I was in school, many moons ago, we had testing. Bring your number 2 pencils and fill in bubbles. But the tests are different today. Maybe the old way was better?

I have a friend that's a college professor and she says the same thing, that education is too politicized.

Lowering funds as a punishment for lower test scores? I would think that's counter-productive. I'd be curious to go back and compare data from before "teaching to the test/punishments" and after.

Thanks for not ripping my grammar. :-)

[Recursion]

8. If the test adequately reflects the curriculum, teaching to the test sounds great

The problem is developing a test that:

A) Adequately covers the material a student should know
B) Is at least more or less objective in its assessment of students' learning*
C) Can be graded without bankrupting school systems (they don't have armies of underpaid grad students to do grading like colleges do)

* Though I'm not really sure what that means. I know we say it as a less inflammatory way of saying "it's a test that minority students don't score lower on", but there's got to be a better way than either of those to say that. And, ironically, the standardized tests that people despize so much were developed for that reason.

[kiva]

9. I teach at a college and I can tell you the end result of the policy:

too many students filter everything through the test question. Will it be on the test? Yes, *OK, must write this down and study it* No, *it is irrelevant to my goal of passing the class and will therefore be discarded by my brain*.

I've see some very good discussions (and believe me, those are not frequent enough in most classrooms) shut down because a student asks if the information will be on the test. Students who were debating an issue, actually talking and learning, immediately get the message - learning isn't important, passing the f***ing test is all that matters. Then the discussion dies and we are back to me talking, them taking notes.

[YankmeCrankme]

16. It would seem to be simple to me...

If the teacher just said, "I don't know, I haven't written the test, yet." in response to the question of whether something was on the test or not. That might keep the students focused on what was being discussed.

[kiva]

20. Different profs approach this situation in their own ways,

but just having a student ask the question really does shift the focus of the class from joining in the discussion to "We shouldn't be talking, the instructor should be talking."

[wcast]

12. Anyone working in education today knows what it means.

Schools are streamlining curriculum, and as a result staff, based on what is on these tests. My school has reduced from 131 teachers to 121, cutting programs that "are not mandated by the Department of Education." This includes getting rid of the elementary music teacher(classroom teachers can do it), a nursing program (which cost all of $15,000 a year)all computer programming classes, and cutting a teacher from the technology education program, which resulted in computer repair and electrical classes being cut, among other cuts.

Everything we do, from selecting text books, our professional development programs, focus of faculty meetings, selection of courses offered, etc, are centered around the test. Tests, which has been stated above and on many other posts, are state specific, that are not norm referenced and probably not standards based, and are being used to decide whether students graduate. A rep from PDE told us at our last training that every school would eventually fail and be on an improvement list.

We buy textbooks that deal only with topics on the test, computers programs to test before we test, data analysis programs and charts, plus training and staff development programs. That is the sole focus of schools today, the TEST!

Why, you may ask? Because the results of not teaching to the test are the loss of your job, loss of local control of the school, the failure of untold students not graduating. We are to pretend that every child learns equally well, that every child is capable of learning the same information, that every child is destined to go to college, that every child wants to be there and takes an active interest, that every child comes from a loving home that values education and wants their child to succeed.

PA is now taking this one step forward with the upcoming Keystone Exams, which are factored in as a part of the students overall grade. It is so designed, and weighted, that any student who fails the test, whether by 1 point or 60, can not pass the course, no matter what grade they achieved during the school year and the work they have done. These will be course specific, as in Algebra I, Algebra II, Chemistry, etc.

I know that rational people outside of education can look at testing and say,"What's the big deal? Students and teachers should be held accountable." I have no qualms with that. We should. But the purpose of these tests is not to hold students and teachers accountable, but instead is intended to create failing schools that can then be taken over, break unions, break collective bargaining agreements, and allow schools to replace quality teachers with low paid, under-trained staff, who will still not be able to meet the unrealistic expectations.

That is why schools, and teachers, teach to the test.

[one_voice]

14. Thank you...

that was very enlightening. I kinda feel like a shitty parent now. I assumed that the testing was an improved version of what I did when I was in school. I considered myself an involved parent I talked to all my kid's teachers on a regular basis, but somehow missed the boat on this.

[wcast]

19. Please know my rant wasn't directed at you :)

All teachers feel this pressure and it was to that I was speaking. Politicians want to keep this unknown, just as some want to use abortion, immigration, and gay marriage as wedge issues. They don't really want to do anything about it, but kick it around.

The general public knows very little about this by design. It's nice to know not everyone falls for the message and are actively involved and care. I think that's the biggest issue. Local control of schools will soon be a thing of the past until parents step up.

[madfloridian]

15. Nice post.....this paragraph is quite true.

"I know that rational people outside of education can look at testing and say,"What's the big deal? Students and teachers should be held accountable." I have no qualms with that. We should. But the purpose of these tests is not to hold students and teachers accountable, but instead is intended to create failing schools that can then be taken over, break unions, break collective bargaining agreements, and allow schools to replace quality teachers with low paid, under-trained staff, who will still not be able to meet the unrealistic expectations."

That's why they keep raising the cut score on the tests without warning....so more will fail.

[midnight]

22. And I thought those tests were to make Neil Bush rich.

"Neil Bush, the president’s youngest brother, have all cashed in on the Roundtable’s successful national implementation of “outcome-based education.”



"The architect of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), President Bush’s first senior education advisor, Sandy Kress, has turned the program, which has consistently proven disastrous in the realm of education, into a huge success in the realm of corporate profiteering. After ushering NCLB through the US House of Representatives in 2001 with no public hearings, Kress went from lawmaker—turning on spigots of federal funds—to lobbyist, tapping into those billions of dollars in federal funds for private investors well connected to the Bush administration.
A statute that once promised equal access to public education to millions of American children now instead promises billions of dollars in profits to corporate clients through dubious processes of testing and assessment and “supplemental educational services.” NCLB—the Business Roundtable’s revision of Lyndon Johnson’s Education and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)—created a “high stakes testing” system through which the private sector could siphon federal education funds. The result has been windfall corporate profit. What was once a cottage industry has become a corporate giant. “Millions of dollars are being spent,” says Jack Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy, “and nobody knows what’s happening.”
The wedding of big business and education benefits not only the interests of the Business Roundtable, a consortium of over 300 CEOs, but countless Bush family loyalists. Sandy Kress, chief architect of NCLB; Harold McGraw III, textbook publisher; Bill Bennett, former Reagan education secretary; and Neil Bush, the president’s youngest brother, have all cashed in on the Roundtable’s successful national implementation of “outcome-based education.”

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/12-bush-profiteers-collect-billions-from-no-child-left-behind/

[montanto]

13. One teacher's perspective:

Much of the material in standardized tests is very specific, perhaps even culturally specific, and sometimes quite arcane. At any rate standardized knowledge is compartmental, making it difficult to understand where it applies until further, more general study is complete. For my money, as a taxpayer and a teacher, I would rather see students develop critical thinking and application skills that are important in their daily lives, and more relevant to their potential college carer. I could teach students how many chaldron there are in a bushel, but it is unlikely that that knowledge will ever be necessary. It is far more important for students to learn how to think critically, how to organize their thoughts, categorize new knowledge, make connections between what they know and what they are being asked to learn, and how to express themselves well both verbally and in writing. Standardized tests don't measure this approach very well, but student performance in college and everyday life depends on it.

Of course there should be testing. If I were the God of testing, the tests would measure portable skills like mathematics and critical thinking (and others: this post is not meant to be comprehensive): Skills that are applicable to many problems, by any cultural subgroup, rather than specific knowledge that may have to wait an age before it finds an application.

The fear among many of us is that we will soon be forced to sell out. That at some point in the near future we will have to either cheat, retreat to a charter, or teach to the test to maintain our careers.

My test style: Why did Columbus do what he did? What were the socioeconomic impacts of that "discovery." What were the costs to others? Who got to decide who lived and who died and why? Are there any recent events that are at all similar? Etc.

Standardized test style: What year did Columbus discover America? What were the names of his ships? What titles did he receive for his efforts? Who did he sail for? etc.

Which of these approaches is more authentic and covers the greatest area of application for students, or anyone for that matter? Facts without reasonable applications are empty things: trivia. Still, if the student understands why Columbus did what he did, and all the rest, s/he could still do poorly on the test and make a failure out of me.

[ieoeja]

17. "Then why are there few Brazilian physicists of note?"

Every time this comes up, I like to recount a story I read by Richard Feynmann, head of the Los Alamos computer staff during the development of the bomb (and most famous for flamboyantly blowing the lid off NASA's attempt to coverup the O-ring mistake).

Invited to Brazil to review their physics education he was surprised to find their high school students using text books to which United States students were not exposed until college. And they were getting similar scores on the tests in the teacher's copy of the book. Yet many of those US students went on to become noted physicists while the Brazilians did not.

So he gave the Brazilian students, both in high school and college, one of the tests he made up himself. His test required more application of what they learned than the standard tests.

The Brazilians failed miserably. At least, those who took the tests. Most of them simply refused. "This is not what we were taught," they would complain. They were victims of having been taught "to the test".


Now that we are doing the same, expect Americans to catch up to everyone else on test scores, but lose our dominance in actually inventing stuff.

[MadHound]

18. Teaching to the test is almost the norm these days,

And it does a huge disservice to students, teachers, and society as a whole.

One of the large reasons that it does students a disservice is it deprives them from learning everything else that isn't on the test. Since the only subjects that are tested (at least currently) are math, reading, writing and science, everything else gets dumped. Let me give you an example.

Two years ago I was in a fifth grade classroom for the better part of the school year. I watched as the Big 4 subjects were relentlessly pounded on, day after day. Never mind the fact that GLE's(grade level expectations, what students are supposed to be learning in any given year, these are mandated by law) state that fifth graders are supposed to be learning American History, through the Civil War into Reconstruction. Day after day, math, reading, writing, science. It wasn't until the yearly test was done and over with, and a month left in school, that the teacher was able to get into American History. The kids got through the Revolution, and that was it.

Art, civics, history, music, all these subjects that are so vital to a student's learning are being dropped by the wayside, and our students are suffering for it. We've already lost one generation to NCLB testing madness, and as Obama continues this testing madness, we're losing another. These kids turn up at college poorly prepared and unready. Not to mention that, since these tests are all multiple choice, their test taking skills are atrophied.

And as these subjects are all that is studied, many students grow to hate them. You have to have variety in a curriculum, in a school day in order to keep students engaged and learning. Hammering on the same old thing, day in, day out, it gets old real quick.

Teachers hate it because it takes away their freedom in the classroom and forces them to teach a limited curriculum in a limited manner. No longer can a teacher spend a period showing students how they can touch infinity through pi and other such irrational numbers. No longer can a teacher teach the student how to write an essay, or better yet, an extended report. With money on the line, and principles whipping them into line, teachers are forced to teach in this stilted manner.

Testing madness has and is doing our society a huge disservice. Like I mentioned earlier, we've already turned out one generation that is unprepared for college, unprepared for life, are we content to keep turning out more and more?

There is a place for testing in school. I took four standardized tests when I was a kid, and they weren't taught to. But then of course, this was back when education in the US was much better than it is now. Funny how that happens, the more you test, the worse our education system becomes. Hmmm:think:

[one_voice]

23. Thank you..

your post was very informative. When my son started high school, I asked if he was taking Civics, he said what's that? I was floored. I explained what Civics was, at least when I was in high school. He said they had something like it but it was incorporated with another type of Social Studies. When I was in hs (during the 80's) it was required for graduation. In junior high we had Social Studies which touched on the basics of a Civics class.

I said (up thread) I'd like to see data 'pre teach to the test' vs. after this started. I have a feeling, as you stated that we're worse off now than we were then.

One has to wonder how much creativity this method takes from both teachers and students.

[YvonneCa]

21. To anyone trying to make sense of this, as I am, I recommend...

...reading Diane Ravitch's book, "The Death and Life of the Great American School." I am reading it now, due to others' recommendations.

There is some jargon and there are parts that relate more to educators than the general public, but Ravitch writes clearly and understandably about what has been happening in education for the last several years in a way that clarifies the debate...whichever side one ends up on.

What helped me was that she makes the connection from NYC school reform and what is happening there under Bloomberg...to San Diego schools (where I live) under Bersin...and how that all applies to reform in other urban districts around the country.

This is bigger than 'a teacher that teaches to the test' versus one who doesn't. It is a struggle over what we want our schools to 'know and be able to do' in the future.

[Smarmie Doofus]

24. In the words of Smokey Robinson, "I second that Emotion."

Also, a lot of Ravitch's work is on the web. This column gets to the point faster than the book:






http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-ravitch/obamas-awful-education-pl_b_266412.html



But folks should get hold of the book if possible.

[YvonneCa]

26. YAaaaY, Smokey!!!

:7 Thanks for posting the link.

[DailyGrind51]

25. "Teaching to the test" may be effective for adult students prepping for a CPA exam,

because it is presumed that adult students already know the concepts and just need need to focus on the material on which they will be tested. However, for children with limited prior knowledge, merely teaching to the test deprives them of the creativity that each teacher brings to the classroom to make lessons and concepts memorable. Sure, kids know how to answer the test, but can they explain why they chose that specific answer or provide another example of where their answer would also apply? Actual teaching goes beyond the test into higher levels of education and "real life'.