[etni] testing
- From: David Reid <reidnomad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2014 09:07:18 +0300
Hi, all
with respect to the article posted by Lauren Ornstein
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-ravitch/opt-out-state-testing_b_5064455.html
it sounds all very nice..... at first glance. But the article
over-simplifies the reason why there are state tests to begin with. First
and foremost, the present education and social systems have created a
mentality among students that they are working for points on tests;
knowledge is an optional extra that is nice but, especially for
adolescents, usually falls behind more important things... like Facebook,
chatting, etc. So, much as teachers would like to deny it, testing has
become the main source of motivation for most classrooms. Both teachers
and students would love to do without massive testing, but except for a
handful of alternative school systems which do without testing until the
last couple of years of secondary school, testing is a given until the
whole system gets an overhaul.
Why state testing? Yes, most teachers are dedicated, although dedication
does not always mean good: you have the whole gamut, between naive
beginning teachers to burned-out teachers, not to mention teachers with
rather antiquated concepts of teaching. But even with good teachers, there
are problems. The article referred to U.S. teaching. In most U.S. states,
there are more than just two levels: state and teacher. Between the two
comes department heads, principals, school directors, school boards, and
counties. The infamous Kansas school board science curriculum of 2005-2007
and the Dover, Pennsylvania school board policy of 2004-2005 (leading to an
interesting federal court case) are only two high-profile cases among many
others. Not all school boards are like that, but enough to make us
sympathetic to Mark Twain's quip "In the first place, God made idiots.
That was for practice. Then he made school boards." The other levels
mentioned also can be major flies in the soup. Even with good teachers,
principals, and school boards, you still have the problem of the wide
diversity from one teacher to another, from one school to another, from one
county to another. Consider the position of a university, trade school, or
employer, who is attempting to select candidates based on academic
performance. Again, tests, but state-wide. In most countries there are
government-regulated nation-wide school leaving exams; not in the US.
[There are SAT and CAT tests (which are run by private institutes), and for
a minority, the AP exams, and for even fewer, the IB exams. For some reason
the critics of the state exams do not object to these exams (which are run
by businesses).]
Of course, this does not mean that the present tests used are good. As the
article mentioned, there are a lot of poorly designed tests. That there
should be improvement of these tests is obvious, and a protest against
particular state tests, perhaps by such a boycott, might be a valid point.
However, this article seems to object to the very idea of state testing,
with the justification that education should be entirely grass roots. Just
as many people would like to do without the annoying side of government
such as taxes, the same people would not want to do without the beneficial
sides, such as roads. Yes, state tests have their negative sides, both in
general and in specific instances, but to pretend that there are no
positive sides leads to a debate without much substance.
Maybe MOOCs will eventually change everything?
David Reid
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