I'm a special Ed teacher tell me about it. Yes we are told to look at what standard is tested most & spend more time teaching those standards. I wish I could spend time teaching kids on occasion real things they need to know. I've got a student in 5th grade (mainstreamed) doesn't know there are 12 months in a year, how to count coins or solve a simple word problem, but she's expected to pass a test all with the mentality of a 5 year old.
There isn't necessarily something wrong with standardized tests, it's what you do with the results that can either help or hinder students. In my opinion it should first and foremost be a tool used to guide students and parents in the choices regarding what kind of education to pursue. For some the moment the test is taken, it was a bad time for whatever reason and they can take that into consideration (family circumstances etc.) wether or not they are up to the task. In my country, these type of tests aren't taken just once to prevent this type of circumstance to influence the result. In my own experience, these tests defenitely sorted out the students in the right way, only few were over their head or not challenged enough. These test aren't being used as something definitive, for that we have the finals etc. and this is in my opinion a good usage of testing aptitude.
Teach for America shows the opposite- you don't need to reduce expectations- great college entry results with otherwise backward. He has fallen into silver bullet thinking- the silver bullet falls therefore fall back. You do need to transform the education system teachers, principals and administrators.
A slight factual inaccuracy on the professor's part. The guy building your roof isn't going to be using Pythagorus anyway. Pitch is figured in rise-run and the hypotenuse derived using a speed square which is sort of like a slide rule for carpenters. It's basically industry specific math that works better when you're on a roof without a calculator and your scrap paper is a piece of lumber.
Koretz has a lot of solid ideas and backs it up with the holy grail of the pro-choice movement, Data, but I can say with certainty that he'll never be listened to. He's not anti-teacher enough. Maybe if he attacks all teachers as lazy and worthless, they might implement some of these ideas.
Many of his arguments can be turned against him. You can say teachers don't teach X because it's not in the test, but then some teachers will teach so much X that they won't teach ABC. Any test there is built out there will never cover everything you know about a topic. They are always samples. Standardized testing has its flaws, but it's one of the only ways to keep teachers in line to teach almost everyone the same kind of skills.
Standardized tests measure how well a person can think on their feet, and I support elevating these scores to the top of the hierarchy when it comes to college and graduate school admissions. Certainly these scores should be ranked far above gender and skin color, and we know that currying favor with a teacher or professor by various means will do nothing to increase a person's score.
I don't. And I actually had very high test scores. SATs are kind of like IQ tests, they don't actually test how intelligent a person is, only how well they can fill out the correct answers. When I went to school they sent a coach in to teach students the tricks of the trade. Things like if you don't know, guess "B", unless you know it can't be "B" then pick "C". Don't know where the hell you get the impression that normal tests are determined by one's race or gender. Either you wrote in the correct answer, or you didn't. Student's shouldn't get a passing grade if they misspell "Ghaot", just because they're of a certain skin color. And I know that kind of thing doesn't happen. (Although, this did happen to me in preschool. The word was "Goat", but thanks to "No Child Gets Left Behind" like tactics, I got a passing grade for "effort". Thank God my mother got me out of that crap school. Even back then I knew this was BS, but the damage was done. I'm now 28 and I still have trouble with spelling.)
I promise you, if you remade the tests (purely randomized the order of the answers) and tested these very same students and told them that there are no tricks. Then they will get lower test scores. Either because they try the same tricks, or they really do take it seriously, doesn't matter.
How about a conversation concerning particularly capable students not being met with challenge or not accelerating their education?
I'm a special Ed teacher tell me about it. Yes we are told to look at what standard is tested most & spend more time teaching those standards. I wish I could spend time teaching kids on occasion real things they need to know. I've got a student in 5th grade (mainstreamed) doesn't know there are 12 months in a year, how to count coins or solve a simple word problem, but she's expected to pass a test all with the mentality of a 5 year old.
There isn't necessarily something wrong with standardized tests, it's what you do with the results that can either help or hinder students. In my opinion it should first and foremost be a tool used to guide students and parents in the choices regarding what kind of education to pursue.
For some the moment the test is taken, it was a bad time for whatever reason and they can take that into consideration (family circumstances etc.) wether or not they are up to the task. In my country, these type of tests aren't taken just once to prevent this type of circumstance to influence the result. In my own experience, these tests defenitely sorted out the students in the right way, only few were over their head or not challenged enough.
These test aren't being used as something definitive, for that we have the finals etc. and this is in my opinion a good usage of testing aptitude.
Teach for America shows the opposite- you don't need to reduce expectations- great college entry results with otherwise backward. He has fallen into silver bullet thinking- the silver bullet falls therefore fall back. You do need to transform the education system teachers, principals and administrators.
He’s right, 👍
A slight factual inaccuracy on the professor's part. The guy building your roof isn't going to be using Pythagorus anyway. Pitch is figured in rise-run and the hypotenuse derived using a speed square which is sort of like a slide rule for carpenters. It's basically industry specific math that works better when you're on a roof without a calculator and your scrap paper is a piece of lumber.
Koretz has a lot of solid ideas and backs it up with the holy grail of the pro-choice movement, Data, but I can say with certainty that he'll never be listened to. He's not anti-teacher enough. Maybe if he attacks all teachers as lazy and worthless, they might implement some of these ideas.
Many of his arguments can be turned against him. You can say teachers don't teach X because it's not in the test, but then some teachers will teach so much X that they won't teach ABC. Any test there is built out there will never cover everything you know about a topic. They are always samples. Standardized testing has its flaws, but it's one of the only ways to keep teachers in line to teach almost everyone the same kind of skills.
Standardized tests measure how well a person can think on their feet, and I support elevating these scores to the top of the hierarchy when it comes to college and graduate school admissions. Certainly these scores should be ranked far above gender and skin color, and we know that currying favor with a teacher or professor by various means will do nothing to increase a person's score.
I don't. And I actually had very high test scores. SATs are kind of like IQ tests, they don't actually test how intelligent a person is, only how well they can fill out the correct answers. When I went to school they sent a coach in to teach students the tricks of the trade. Things like if you don't know, guess "B", unless you know it can't be "B" then pick "C".
Don't know where the hell you get the impression that normal tests are determined by one's race or gender. Either you wrote in the correct answer, or you didn't. Student's shouldn't get a passing grade if they misspell "Ghaot", just because they're of a certain skin color. And I know that kind of thing doesn't happen.
(Although, this did happen to me in preschool. The word was "Goat", but thanks to "No Child Gets Left Behind" like tactics, I got a passing grade for "effort". Thank God my mother got me out of that crap school. Even back then I knew this was BS, but the damage was done. I'm now 28 and I still have trouble with spelling.)
I promise you, if you remade the tests (purely randomized the order of the answers) and tested these very same students and told them that there are no tricks. Then they will get lower test scores. Either because they try the same tricks, or they really do take it seriously, doesn't matter.
I agree schools should weigh tests so much.