Removing Standardized State Testing - The possible solution to America's flawed education system?

[EmperorBatman999]

For those people who live outside America, here we have large, tedious tests that happen every fall that is used to determine a school's "standing" compared to other schools on how much students are learning. Every student (although I'm sure retards and heavily autistic kids get the exception) must finish this test. The tests differ state to state, but most have reading and math as their main subjects, although some tests include science and writing.
Schools tend to focus most of their teaching on these tests using short term learning methods, and most things in the tests are irrelevant to your future (such as reading long, boring passages that have nothing relatable to your life and then answering questions based on your reading of the passage). The focus it seems is so great on these tests that schools don't teach using long term learning methods or teach kids things that actually matter, or will matter.
So, if these tests were abolished and a better, easier comparision methods (both on student and teacher) are implemented, will US education break out of it's terrible position of beureautcratic (see? I can't even spell that!) carelessness?

[Lord Mandelson]

"Bureaucratic".

No, really, I actually agree. How many more times do educationalists have to tell schools that too many tests are bad? In Britain, we call it "Sat-Nav Education", i.e. you are only taught what you absolutely have to be in order to pass the test. That's obviously rubbish. I never knew you had it so bad in the States, though. OK here in Britain you might get the odd end-of-year test, but no-one really cares, the kids just do their best. Only two things matter: the GCSEs and the A-Levels. Not sure how that ties in with your "real" tests.

I can only guess this is just being done to keep private testing companies in the money?

[removeduser_4536284751384]

In Britain, we call it "Sat-Nav Education", i.e. you are only taught what you absolutely have to be in order to pass the test.

I don't think there's a country that doesn't have that. It's because of giant curriculums.

[Lord Mandelson]

I don't think there's a country that doesn't have that. It's because of giant curriculums.

True, but I'd wager that other countries don't give it the epithet "sat-nav education".

[EmperorBatman999]

"Bureaucratic".

No, really, I actually agree. How many more times do educationalists have to tell schools that too many tests are bad? In Britain, we call it "Sat-Nav Education", i.e. you are only taught what you absolutely have to be in order to pass the test. That's obviously rubbish. I never knew you had it so bad in the States, though. OK here in Britain you might get the odd end-of-year test, but no-one really cares, the kids just do their best. Only two things matter: the GCSEs and the A-Levels. Not sure how that ties in with your "real" tests.

I can only guess this is just being done to keep private testing companies in the money?

Here, all what really matters are SAT's you need for college.
But my teachers (not sure if they're serious or just being threatening) that how well we do on tests determine what classes we get the next year.
We also have two tests here right now, NECAPs (done by paper, fill in the bubbles or write a response) and NEWEA's, which are done on the computer. Both are a pain in the hind quarters, but I somehow still manage to do good. In fact, I think I raised my school's average and brought it up to the state standard.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Education has basically long divorced itself from the needs of the day to day. It was originally conceived as a means towards the enlightenment of brutes, but when the naivete of such a stance was realized, rather than putting it down to the bare essentials, the "Bureaucracy" of Education has made it so that they tended to their own little necessities instead.

[Winter]

Half of my sophomore English class was dedicated to learning the inane and senseless ways to write that would get us to pass the CAPT test, the Connecticut standardized test that all 10th graders take. It worked, and the class did very well, but we learned nothing of any use.

I recall a several month span, in fact, during which we didn't even read any books, but focused on vocabulary and these stupid, needlessly rigid, and insipid writing prompts that apparently test our "mastery". What a waste of time. I'm all for throwing them out, though its really the No Child Left Behind act that stands in the way of that.

[Kurtz]

Half of my sophomore English class was dedicated to learning the inane and senseless ways to write that would get us to pass the CAPT test, the Connecticut standardized test that all 10th graders take. It worked, and the class did very well, but we learned nothing of any use.

I recall a several month span, in fact, during which we didn't even read any books, but focused on vocabulary and these stupid, needlessly rigid, and insipid writing prompts that apparently test our "mastery". What a waste of time. I'm all for throwing them out, though its really the No Child Left Behind act that stands in the way of that.

Oh god I hated those Writing tests. I just loved putting my future well being in the hands of some bald prick.

[Viking Prince]

Half of my sophomore English class was dedicated to learning the inane and senseless ways to write that would get us to pass the CAPT test, the Connecticut standardized test that all 10th graders take. It worked, and the class did very well, but we learned nothing of any use.

I recall a several month span, in fact, during which we didn't even read any books, but focused on vocabulary and these stupid, needlessly rigid, and insipid writing prompts that apparently test our "mastery". What a waste of time. I'm all for throwing them out, though its really the No Child Left Behind act that stands in the way of that.

At least that year of schooling served you well when posting to TWC on the internet. Actually, if all they accomplished in that year of English was to train most of you to write understandable sentences, I would declare the hour a day for a school year to be an academic success.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

so what would we (with no experience in education) replace it with?

Well certainly courses should be reduced. Is memorizing but not understanding the answers to all possible questions really useful? No, and it's extremely stressful.

[thewolflord]

At my school, there's really little preparation for tests like the STAR (as it's called in California). That only matters to a school's ranking in some convoluted system. SATs matter most to students, especially the expensive-college bound.

All the same, teaching kids how to take tests makes them good at... well, taking tests. Nothing much else.

[Stavroforos]

I thought only California and New York had state-wide mandatory testing?

The Reagents exams in NY were annoying, but they were certainly not difficult for most.

[Kurtz]

I thought only California and New York had state-wide mandatory testing?

The Reagents exams in NY were annoying, but they were certainly not difficult for most.

It's not the fact that it's overly difficult it's the fact that it's total waste of time. All most everything I learned in school had something to do with those damn tests. Nothing that was worthwhile or would actually help us in our lives, it was all about those tests. Everything we learned in school. Everything.

[Stavroforos]

Perhaps your school just sucked?

[jman47]

Perhaps your school just sucked?

It was the same at my school in califonia.

The problem is widespread and i have not the energy tonight to fully describe it.

[Sphere]

I can only guess this is just being done to keep private testing companies in the money?

Private testing in the US is completely separate. A student will pay a private firm to sit for a test (SAT, ACT and GRE and the big ones) after which your test scores are sent to the universities you are applying to. The testing the OP is talking about is done within the public school system to access how well school systems are doing, and thereby punish those that are lagging behind. The test scores stay anonymous.

My limited experience with these tests was that they were very easy, and if students cannot do well on them there is something terribly wrong with the school. There is far too much whining about them.

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

Just out of curiosity, are your tests the 'multiple choice' type that we see in the movies?

[Kurtz]

Just out of curiosity, are your tests the 'multiple choice' type that we see in the movies?

Yeah. They were pretty easy, but it doesn't change the fact that they were pointless and a huge waste of time.

[EmperorBatman999]

Just out of curiosity, are your tests the 'multiple choice' type that we see in the movies?

Yes, you get two booklets, one with the question, the other an answer sheet. You need to fill in either the A, B, C or D bubbles. There are also some blank spaces for you to write responses if the question asks it.

The tests are easy, but stressful and a waste of the students' lives. I hate the math ones especially, since I suck at math. I abandoned my faith in mathematics somewhere in second grade. It's nothing more to appease the big businesses that benefit from issueing out tests.

[Phier]

This is a damned if you do damned if you don't situation.

The problem are lower performing schools need to be singled out and reformed, this can be due to a lot of reasons, including poor teachers, and there is no real good way to assess this, so we have the testing.

Then you have situations like the following. In Illinois you are required to pass the 'constitution test' which is a basic US history/government test to graduate highschool. I think its a good idea that students know this. At the time I was a young doc working in a very Hispanic area and a girl about 17 came into my office with a book on ancient Greece. I asked her if she was reading it for school or on her own and it was on her own, she said on her own. So I started to ask some basic history questions, and I knew the girl was bright, and she was completely clueless on US history, so I asked her who the last president was (Clinton) and she had no idea, I asked her who the current president was (GW) and she had no idea. So I asked how she passed her constitution test, and she said they gave them the answers prior to taking it.

Some schools teach for the test, and in Chicago they apparently teach THE test.

The proper way to handle this would be a very through and close review of the teachers, but the NEA would never allow that.