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04-22-2010, 07:43 AM | #11 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Northwestern PA
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Yes, as far as I know every state has these sorts of standardized tests. My boyfriend is a third grade teacher and he has real issues with them. The major issue public schools face with these types of tests are centered around funding. The test scores greatly influence the amount of federal and/or state dollars a specific school are allocated for the next year. It's basically like applying the free market/private business method to a public institution. The better the schools do on their tests, the more money they get. In theory it is designed to motivate the teachers to do their best so that the kids score higher on standardized tests and their school gets more funds, making teaching and learning that much easier. However, a problem arises when one considers the differences in what works best for each child. When he explains the structure of the tests and the importance of the scores for the school and it's district, you start to see how kids end up falling through the cracks. Poorer schools, which have always done the worst, are now getting funds based on test results, which makes teaching the kids that much more difficult. No child left behind ends up leaving a lot of them behind. Then, you have a school run by an administration that shifts the focus from teaching kids for the sake of teaching kids and ends up only concerning itself with test scores because faculty, staff, supplies, technology and resources are now on a merrit system. 200 kids, who all learn differently, are held to one standard and their ability to conform to it ends up dictating the number of teachers a school can afford to hire to teach them. When they do poorly and the school has to let 2 of their 25 teachers go, that doesn't help the kids. (Those are all just example numbers, I don't know how many teachers and students figure into your average public school) Another issue he raises all the time is the fact that there is no federal standard. The standards are different from one state to the next. It makes a new student from California that much more difficult to deal with when he or she moves to another state that suddenly has different standards that place them ahead of or behind the standard for that state. I think standardized testing is important to the child and preparing him or her for the real world, but basing the entire school's budget on so many different students is only hurting the kids.
These tests are nothing more than a waist of resources. These kids should be learning for education sake, not to fill the pockets of bullshit school execs and their pet projects.
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04-22-2010, 07:44 AM | #12 |
Banned
Join Date: May 2008
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You nailed it. The school district by me just teaches for the test, not for the kids to actually learn the topics. The school just wants the money and ends up pissing it away on stupid shit. Instead of using the additional funding for new books or more supplies and god forbid livable wages for the teachers, they'd rather throw more than a million dollars at a brand new stadium with AstroTurf for a football team that wins at most two games a season.
These tests are nothing more than a waist of resources. These kids should be learning for education sake, not to fill the pockets of bullshit school execs and their pet projects. |
04-22-2010, 07:59 AM | #13 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: New Castle, Delaware
Posts: 4,498
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Hate 'em, generally, but don't know any alternatives. No standardized test is going to accurately reflect the abilities of every student in its purview. Even tests that we really rely on, such as the SAT, are deeply flawed; as an SAT tutor I was able to teach students whose second language was English just exactly what strategies to use based on keys to look for in questions. They would be able to answer the questions correctly but not actually know why it was correct. They didn't have the actual knowledge the test was meant to assess, only knowledge of the test itself. And they did just fine.
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04-22-2010, 08:11 AM | #14 |
Hisstank.Com General
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Location: Atlanta
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In my opinion these tests are designed for the lowest common denominator; therefore, they are really not difficult for the average student getting decent grades throughout the year. I never gave them any thought when I took them in school becuase the material was way behind where I was in my classes.
It is a shame that schools these days are compelled to teach to the test rather than focusing on providing a deeper education to the students. In the Atlanta area, there was a recent story where some schools were actually changing student's answers to boost test scores in the schools. They didn't want to loose funding and/or accreditation. They reason why they caught them is because the state runs statistical analysis on the answers and scores. It was determined that it was statistically very unlikely that there would be a sudden improvement in scores from one year to the next. The test results from these particular schools were flagged for further investigation. When they looked at the actual answer sheets, they saw a great deal of changed answers. Much more than what is typical. |
04-22-2010, 08:31 AM | #15 |
Btchin RckStr Frm M.A.R.S
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Castle McCullen
Posts: 6,127
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This(standardized testing) is why we are like 30th in the world for education.
http://www.theonion.com/video/report...in-apti,14199/
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04-22-2010, 08:37 AM | #16 |
Iron Grenadier
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Missouri
Posts: 789
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Everything you need to know about the public school system in the U.S. is summarized right here:
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04-22-2010, 08:47 AM | #17 |
Hisstank.Com General
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Classified
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i kind of feel an overwhelming consensus here...
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"If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face." ~ ZDLR |
04-22-2010, 09:05 AM | #18 |
Iron Grenadier
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Painting the terrordrome with a laser, from an undisclosed location
Posts: 785
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I have always had a thought on that, but biggest comarisons of education often come from china and japan. BUT both China and Japan do not educate everyone. You have to take a test to get into the first grade. Also if you fall behind then that's it, your out. To be honest not everyone is of the same intellegence and with the "weeding out" of the problem kids this creates an unfair sample for comparison. It's basicly taking another countries top performers and compairing them to another countries whole population. With that of course China and Japan are going to have much higher test scores, they only test thier best and brightest students.
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On homeschooling, that isn't a realistic option for many families. Both parents work in many cases leaving little time for such ventures. Add to that if both parents work you really don't wanna leave your kids at home alone all day. Yeah it sounds bad but there is the "daycare" factor that allows for the adults to work and earn that money stuff to put food on the table.
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On standardized tests, I have the same problem mentioned above, the kids are taught how to take the test (out of fear of budget cuts should the kids not perform as well on those tests) and everything else is pretty much ignored. Making this worse is the fact that the tests take up SOOO much time the kids are not encouraged or helped or prepaired to go to college (a nessessity in this world now) so many of the few that do deside to go end up flunking out cause they weren't ready.
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i understand some times we just can not make those moves but i have taken three steps to make full use of the public education system, we should always keep up with the happenings at our kids schools |
04-22-2010, 09:48 AM | #19 |
Banned
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Hisstank Wrestling Federation!
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This is why we are like 30th in the world for education.
Report: American Schools Trail Behind World In Aptitude Of Child Soldiers | The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Onion News Network Kidding btw. Except the soccer part. Seriously, we stop playing soccer once our mommy's decide we're old enough to play real sports. |
04-22-2010, 10:30 AM | #20 |
Customizer of 80s Toys
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: US
Posts: 1,740
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As both a parent and a teacher in the public school system (12 years) I agree that teaching to the test is wrong. I readily agree that students are not getting a "full well-rounded" education because it is being sacrificed for good test scores.
Some people who believe though when any child fails THE test the teacher is to blame needs to be a teacher. Some students will not do anything all year long no matter how much encouragement they are given or anything else. If you think that students are told 10,000 times how important the test is by the teachers it is because the teachers hear it 1,000,000 times until we are sick of it. Our educational system is not the best, but it is not the teachers who are fault it is the overall system and the people that run our educational system. It needs a complete overhaul. By the way are there bad teachers? YES! Should they be fired? That is an even bigger YES! Standardized testing is crippling our youth and creating a nation of people who cannot think for themselves. I know some teachers fight against this and try to give them the education they deserve, but when your job is tied to THE test and you are reminded of it constantly in the end you have to keep your job and teach to the test and stress the importance of it. As for getting bonuses from doing well on the test that has been cut out as well as a decrease in teacher's pay and eliminating positions. The amusing part is if they cut out standardized testing they could save millions of dollars a year in each state. Last edited by Flint_rocks; 04-22-2010 at 10:34 AM.. |
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