Monday, November 8, 2010
Blog 5 Chapter 5 of Readicide
Testing, Testing, Testing. That seems to be the hot topic in schools today as it seems we are obsessed with monitoring progress and I think to a fault. We are so desperate for quantifiable evidence of improvement that we alter the tests to give us the results we so desperately need as Gallagher states in this book. I think the whole system needs to calm down. Rome was not built in a day and improvement in schools is going to take time. The deadline of 2014 for all the schools to be up to speed seems quite ridiculous to me. That doesn't give enough time for any of the changes to show results. The finding that progress was more pronounced in elementary and middle schools kind of proves my point. The path to literacy for a student is more easily altered the younger they are in the same way that it is much more difficult to learn a foreign language the older you get. Its going to another 8 more years for todays first graders to be entering high school and we have to look at it in that way. The sad fact is that for todays 11th graders the ship has already sailed and there is little we can do to make them readers. I know that by that age, I hated books and my mind was made up and nobody could change it. Lets continue to improve and let the results come instead of forcing the results. Everybody just needs to chill out so to say and quit testing these kids like crazy. School is stressful enough without shoving test after test after test down their throat and because the teachers job depends on the scores undue pressure is being put on the students to do well. Come on! Let them read at their own pace and we need to emphasize learning not test taking!
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Yes I totally agree we are constatnly worrying about test taking and progress monitoring and in return our childrens education is suffering. There had to be a better way to monitor student progress and teacher effectiveness it shouldn't be based on just one thing.There is nothing worng with testing altogether it's just a problem that we focus so much on it and allow student acheivement to be based soley off of test taking. I had a student in my class last year who was very bright and worked to make some of the best grades in my classroom. however when it came time for the CRCT he didnt pass the neccessary parts because he was not a good test taker, and was nervous. Now all of his hard work for the entire school year has been marginalized down to the results of one test. It isnt fair and we need to figure out some ways to shift this route in education.
ReplyDeleteInteresting because we are about to go to Common Core standards across the U.S. and they are talking about yet another test that will be a national test so they can actually compare Apples to Apples. The kids will still have EOCT's and for a little while they will still have the Graduation Tests. It just seems like every year the kids a test of some kind. Then of course they go to college and have the same thing. They take the ACT or SAT to get into college, then they have to take the Regents test in college. For some colleges they have to have a separate writing test and then they have to have a GRE if they want to do some of the graduate degrees. It is like tests are in overdrive or something. We live and breathe tests from the day we start school to the day we finish.
ReplyDeleteYeah I agree with you, this testing nighmare needs to calm down. The older the kids are, or the higher the need of foundational basics- the harder it is to teach literacy. The whole ed focus has gone from instructing the MAJORITY of students in basic communication skills and employment readiness to do whatever you have to ensure AYP and school's funding. Just one senerio the geniuses in the gov fail to adquately consider-some of these kids are coming to America missing the literacy basics in their first lang. let alone learning functional literacy in a second lang. This is one area costing schools AYP all over the country. Punishing schools is ridiculous. Take away funding from a struggling school dealing with these kinds of major learning issues - is going to help education how??? A whole generation of illiterates are put on the street-because they dropped out. Maybe the gov will finally recognize the corruption and educational failing in "cooking the books." Unfortunately, if the school's only option for funding is to skew the results- they'll do it, no matter who gets left behind.
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