expand national standardized testing like SAT to happen at more levels, and focus on grading the schools, not the kids
No - this is part of the problem. We aren’t allowed to teach anymore. I taught chemistry, but I was told that I needed to focus on the ACT - like, I needed to regularly incorporate entirely unrelated material for test prep.
Elementary school is even worse. Science and social studies are deprioritized because the big testing is on reading and math.
Yeah I know standardized tests aren’t popular with a lot of people, especially teachers. Teaching to the test is a failure of your administration but I have no idea how to fix that.
But the much bigger problem is how uneven the quality of education is across different schools, different states, different regions. There needs to be a way to set the bar: every school needs to at least teach the kids x, or the school needs attention.
My state does standardized testing and there’s certainly resistance, but I think they’ve generally succeeded in using it to grade the school, not the kid. And yes they’ve succeeded in identifying schools for more attention and I believe this has helped improve our education level. Then again, education is a priority here so everyone might be a little more motivated than in many other places
How else do you find where a school, a district, an entire state is lacking? If you don’t know, how can you do something about it? I understand this is the type of interference from the federal government that certain areas don’t like but if you’re not teaching your kids then your local priorities are crap and need to be reconsidered. Or your local funding is crap and needs to be reconsidered. Or you need additional help. It’s ok for a school or a district to have a problem but it’s not ok to just leave it like that and that’s where a higher level Department of Education can make a difference. There’s a limit to your local preferences and it’s not ok to harm your kids’ future
My state’s education system is generally ranked at the top in the US but your kids deserve that too
The thing is, standardized tests don’t measure learning. They measure the ability to take standardized tests. It’s not an “education” to teach students “make sure to fill out every question! make sure to use process of elimination to improve your odds!” There’s a reason that the kids who can afford test prep do better - because they learn to take the test, not the material.
And yes, it’s not popular with teachers because the test results don’t match the students. The way you ensure quality is standards, and hiring qualified teachers. The problem at this point is that the pay and work conditions are not commensurate with the education and work required - so states are hiring “adjuncts” as baby sitters.
ACT/SAT are private companies, that determine what those test scores should be and represent. Stakeholders like teachers, students and parents are entirely removed from the equation.
These tests also do not match the standards. The ACT science section (which at least is supposed to be optional soon) does not align with NGSS.
The things that are impacting education are the climbing class sizes, the teacher “shortage” (eg, unqualified adjuncts are cheaper and don’t join unions) and the fact that we basically stopped teaching children to read for several years (eg, “whole reading”/guessing what words mean from context replacing phonics instruction.)Testing more does nothing to address these issues, and actually incentivizes these problems.
The difference is testing to grade the schools and defining tests to measure a standard that all schools must meet. That doesn’t make all of what you said disappear (and that’s an administrative issue) but changing the focus can make standardized tests useful. Regardless of any shortcomings there’s a bigger problem in quality of education in different schools, districts, regions, states and we can’t fix what we can’t identify.
pay and work conditions are not commensurate
climbing class sizes, the teacher “shortage”
stopped teaching children to read
Those are indeed very likely to be some of the root causes. However if you can’t measure the results you can’t demonstrate you’ve succeeded, addressing all of these doesn’t mean you’ve succeeded, there are most likely other issues to be addressed as well. Standardized testing to measure schools gives a way to identify where things are falling short, gives a way to demonstrate the success in correcting these issues, and gives a way to identify where that is not happening or where that is not enough
As a teacher, you probably can’t do anything about class sizes. As a teacher, if there were anything you could do to increase teacher pay, you’d already be doing it. There need a to be a way to hold a school, a community, a district accountable for a school that can reach a standard bar. That starts with a way to measure whether they are.
You may also argue there are better ways, such as professional audits or evaluations but those aren’t scalable and have not been working.
No - this is part of the problem. We aren’t allowed to teach anymore. I taught chemistry, but I was told that I needed to focus on the ACT - like, I needed to regularly incorporate entirely unrelated material for test prep.
Elementary school is even worse. Science and social studies are deprioritized because the big testing is on reading and math.
Yeah I know standardized tests aren’t popular with a lot of people, especially teachers. Teaching to the test is a failure of your administration but I have no idea how to fix that.
But the much bigger problem is how uneven the quality of education is across different schools, different states, different regions. There needs to be a way to set the bar: every school needs to at least teach the kids x, or the school needs attention.
My state does standardized testing and there’s certainly resistance, but I think they’ve generally succeeded in using it to grade the school, not the kid. And yes they’ve succeeded in identifying schools for more attention and I believe this has helped improve our education level. Then again, education is a priority here so everyone might be a little more motivated than in many other places
How else do you find where a school, a district, an entire state is lacking? If you don’t know, how can you do something about it? I understand this is the type of interference from the federal government that certain areas don’t like but if you’re not teaching your kids then your local priorities are crap and need to be reconsidered. Or your local funding is crap and needs to be reconsidered. Or you need additional help. It’s ok for a school or a district to have a problem but it’s not ok to just leave it like that and that’s where a higher level Department of Education can make a difference. There’s a limit to your local preferences and it’s not ok to harm your kids’ future
My state’s education system is generally ranked at the top in the US but your kids deserve that too
The thing is, standardized tests don’t measure learning. They measure the ability to take standardized tests. It’s not an “education” to teach students “make sure to fill out every question! make sure to use process of elimination to improve your odds!” There’s a reason that the kids who can afford test prep do better - because they learn to take the test, not the material.
Its a system that creates perverse incentives.
And yes, it’s not popular with teachers because the test results don’t match the students. The way you ensure quality is standards, and hiring qualified teachers. The problem at this point is that the pay and work conditions are not commensurate with the education and work required - so states are hiring “adjuncts” as baby sitters.
ACT/SAT are private companies, that determine what those test scores should be and represent. Stakeholders like teachers, students and parents are entirely removed from the equation.
These tests also do not match the standards. The ACT science section (which at least is supposed to be optional soon) does not align with NGSS.
The things that are impacting education are the climbing class sizes, the teacher “shortage” (eg, unqualified adjuncts are cheaper and don’t join unions) and the fact that we basically stopped teaching children to read for several years (eg, “whole reading”/guessing what words mean from context replacing phonics instruction.)Testing more does nothing to address these issues, and actually incentivizes these problems.
The difference is testing to grade the schools and defining tests to measure a standard that all schools must meet. That doesn’t make all of what you said disappear (and that’s an administrative issue) but changing the focus can make standardized tests useful. Regardless of any shortcomings there’s a bigger problem in quality of education in different schools, districts, regions, states and we can’t fix what we can’t identify.
Those are indeed very likely to be some of the root causes. However if you can’t measure the results you can’t demonstrate you’ve succeeded, addressing all of these doesn’t mean you’ve succeeded, there are most likely other issues to be addressed as well. Standardized testing to measure schools gives a way to identify where things are falling short, gives a way to demonstrate the success in correcting these issues, and gives a way to identify where that is not happening or where that is not enough
As a teacher, you probably can’t do anything about class sizes. As a teacher, if there were anything you could do to increase teacher pay, you’d already be doing it. There need a to be a way to hold a school, a community, a district accountable for a school that can reach a standard bar. That starts with a way to measure whether they are.
You may also argue there are better ways, such as professional audits or evaluations but those aren’t scalable and have not been working.