Ms. Scarbary’s class

   Jenn

November 20, 2006 @ 6:34 pm

I am in absolute agreement with you regarding the overuse of standardized testing to evaluate students, teachers, and schools. Standardized tests are just one kind of evaluation and too much emphasis is being placed on this one type of assessment. Can you evaluate how well someone will do in a decathlon by their running ability alone? What about their strengths and weaknesses in the nine other events? It is important that we have multiple ways to evaluate students because there are multiple skills and styles of learning that constitute being a learner, not just one. The fact that much of the curriculum is being focused on “teaching to the test” is a grave oversight that will deny students a well-rounded education involving critical thinking skills and meaning making. Good instruction involves the facilitation of making meaning which will be retained well after the test is done and gone. As educators, we must work to take some of the emphasis off of standardized testing and put it back where it belongs–on the holistic education of the student.

   jackie

November 29, 2006 @ 11:16 am

I am glad you brought this up, Ms. Scarbary! It seems as though the first conversation you get into with teachers is standardized testing. I have yet to meet a teacher who is pro-testing. I agree with not only your, but also Jenn’s comments on the matter of standardized testing.
How biased are standardized tests? Do tests look at cultural perspectives of students? Had the student eaten breakfast before taking the test? Has the student been through a stressful situation recently?
These questions focus on the context of the testing situation. And while a student, may have an off day, we must still prepare them to take these tests. Sadly, it does not seem as though tests will go away. Think about how you got into college or graduate school… you took the SAT or GRE. We must all take standardized tests. I think the best thing we can do for our students is prepare them for HOW to take the test. Show them how to answer reading comprehension questions (i.e. read the question first, then the passage, mark off the questions you know are wrong, then look for details, etc). The more we can cognitively model how to test well, I think the more we can help students.

   Michelle Y

November 29, 2006 @ 4:44 pm

I was involved in a class discussion last night about standardized testing and the No Child Left Behind Act. I was surprised to hear that NCLB mandates that 100% of children MUST be reading at grade level (as determined by these infamous tests) by 2014.

Now, doesn’t that go against everything we’ve been taught about standards? I like that you mentioned that true “standards” will have half of the children in the “below average” category. It seems that it would be painfully obvious that schools will not meet NCLB’s 2014 goal. It’s just impossible.

Another interesting point brought up in the discussion: NCLB is up for review next year.

   Ms. Scarbary’s class » Additional Thoughts on Standardized Testing

November 30, 2006 @ 9:30 pm

[...] Jackie brings up a good point in the comments to my previous post about standardized testing. Standardized tests are unlikely to go away, for it IS true that some standard sort of yardstick is needed to accurately assess knowledge and ability. We all took the SAT to get into college, and took the GRE to be accepted to the graduate program. Frankly, an A at one school isn’t equal to an A elsewhere. Some schools are better than others, and we do need some form of accountability and some, however limited and questionable, quantitative measures of comparison. [...]