Hello peoples, I have been wondering myself if State tests, such as the WASL for me, or STAR/CAT, along with every other state in the United States, is really necissary. I mean I recently got my scores back, and by no means am I saying that they are bad scores, but I think that this test somewhat stereotypes the students taking the tests. I know that you don't really get a tangible grade, but so much rides on good scores. In example, next year's classes, and the score goes on your record for ALL teachers to see. The state doesn't know the student's work ethic most of all, and that is what bothers me the most about this test. So what do all of you think?? Does it bother you, and what bothers you about it?
I've never liked State tests. Even some of the high school teachers I had hated them.Some kids are not good at doing tests namely State tests ( yes I was one of them). The State relies on those tests too much and not on how hard the student has worked.
State tests like Zero tolerance laws attempt to replace the more individual abilities of students with a boring basic mold of an education. In essence, it replaces real learning, with the ability to regurgitate data. Here in Cali we've got: The Star, Golden State, Star II, ACT, SAT, SATII. The worst part of it all it that it can take an otherwise successful student with perhaps an unorthodox way of learning and portray them as a failure because they don't think the same way the test wants them to think.
I sample: myself. Blame it on a rebellions streak, but I simply like to do things my way, and I've butted heads with many teachers because they wanted me to do my stuff A, B, C, D, ect..., while I preferred to do it X, F, M, L, A. And hence I did poorly on standardized tests, well, A-C range depending on the subject. So I didn't take the SAT or ACT tests, when I took the placement tests I did very poorly because I just don't test well.
In short, standardized tests are bad for education, since you aren't really learning.
State tests like Zero tolerance laws attempt to replace the more individual abilities of students with a boring basic mold of an education. In essence, it replaces real learning, with the ability to regurgitate data. Here in Cali we've got: The Star, Golden State, Star II, ACT, SAT, SATII. The worst part of it all it that it can take an otherwise successful student with perhaps an unorthodox way of learning and portray them as a failure because they don't think the same way the test wants them to think.
QFT
I was going to type something out, but I think that sums it up nicely. I live in California as well, and the education system revolves so heavily around tests its ridiculous. I sometimes felt more like a machine eating and spitting out information than a student. I actually decided to study for tests instead of studying to learn and found I got straight A+'s without doing a lick of homework. That is a failed education system.
"Our teachers were absolute tyrants. They had no sympathy with youth; their one object was to stuff our brains and turn us into erudite apes like themselves. If any pupil showed the slightest trace of originality, they persecuted him relentlessly, and the only model pupils whom I have ever got to know have all been failures in life."
-Adolf Hitler
"It's fairly obvious that American education is a cultural flop. Americans are not a well-educated people culturally, and their vocational education often has to be learned all over again after they leave school and college. On the other hand, they have open quick minds and if their education has little sharp positive value, it has not the stultifying effects of a more rigid training."
-Raymond Chandler
"Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly."
-Arnold Edinborough
"This is how it is today: The teachers are afraid of the principals. The principals are afraid of the superintendents. The superintendents are afraid of the board of education. The board is afraid of the parents. The parents are afraid of the children. The children are afraid of nothing!"
-Milton Berle
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't."
-Anatole France
"School is an institution for drilling children in cultural orientation. ...American classrooms, like educational institutions anywhere, express the values, preoccupations,and fears found in the culture as a whole. School has no choice; it must train the children to fit the culture as it is. ...Since education is always against some things and for others, it bears the burden of the cultural obessions. ...It thus comes about that most educational systems are imbued with anxiety and hostility, that they are against as many things as they are for. ... The function of education has never been to free the mind and the spirit of man, but to bind them...acquiescence, not originality. ...Schools are the central conserving force of the culture."
-Jules Henry
"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality."
-H. L. Mencken
"Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts."
-Henry Adams
(Yes, Quotes are my new thing. Why say something when someone else can say it for me.)
Luckily we don't have such test in Norway. The previous government tried to introduce them, and threatened everyone who didn't do them with lovered grades. It sparked a massive boycot by the students, at my school less than 1/4 of the students did it. The government took the hint and backed down.
The other problem with standardized tests is the proliferation of prep courses, which focuses more on teaching you to beat the test, rather than really learning anything.
I dunno, I love state tests, cuz I've always done well on them. I was also a very good student. I did have my fair share of clashes with teachers and their methods, but on the whole, I did rather well in high school. Ї\O_o/Ї
And I can understand the need for standardized testing. It's all well and good to say, 'oh, they don't teach you anything, you just take it to beat the test, yadda yadda', because that's mostly true. And yes, they don't really teach you anything. But why are they there? To allow colleges and universities a standardized frame of reference and criteria to go along with your high school GPA. Schools of higher learning can't be arsed to individually and meticulously examine each and every applicant, especially the big / highly competitive ones which get tens of thousands of applications every year. It's just a way to give them another number to crunch, and until someone comes up with a better alternative and is able to implement it in such a way most educators and administrators agree, it works just fine.
The problem with state testing is that they don't take into account the percentage of those students who are English learners. Here in So. Cal a large percentage of the kids are EESL, learning English as a second language. On average it take 3-5 years to acquire a second language. Most of the students when they take the test haven't been in school long enough to acquire the basics. It also doesn't take into account that there are schools like my mom's that have nothing but capped kids in order to meet the 20:1 ratio. In her kinder class she has studetns who have never had kinder before and most of them start in the middle of the year right when they turn 6, the required age to start school.
To point out other things, these tests also cover material that is impossible to get to unless you are on an acclerated program and you have an exceptionally bright set of students. We used to rank number one in the nation in education. We have been ranked 50 since the 60's or so and that was because we issued in what I call the coddling age. Corporal punishment was deemed unhealthy and it was better to baby them rather than tell them they are going to do it.
On another note with NCLB (No Child Left Behind), it is up for renewal. They want to add a clause that is really a low blow. I could think of stronger words but they are inappropriate. It calls for teachers to be paid based upon their students' test scores. That is a bunch of crap considering they are paid, while better off than working in a restaurant, they are paid a penance. University professors get paid more than they do. True there are some bad elem. teachers out there but this is plain wrong. To do that is unfair since those guys we elected as reps have never come down here to view the situation regarding English learners and capped kids. Some have never been in their programs long enough to learn anything the way they get moved around. I tell you this is a fireball topic and my views are that it is a pain in the rear.