Standardized Testing

[Whimsicality]

I was going to post something about this in the Celsius 41.11 thread, when Derek mentioned the No Child Left Behind act, but I figured since people don't choose their president based on his education policies, maybe it should have a thread of it's own.

I am against standardized testing. Human minds are not standardized.



Taken from http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/staiv.htm

Standardized-test scores often measure superficial thinking. In a study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, elementary school students were classified as "actively" engaged in learning if they asked questions of themselves while they read and tried to connect what they were doing to past learning; and as "superficially" engaged if they just copied down answers, guessed a lot, and skipped the hard parts. It turned out that high scores on both the CTBS and the MAT were more likely to be found among students who exhibited the superficial approach to learning. Similar findings have emerged from studies of middle school students (also using the CTBS) and high school students (using the other SAT, the college-admission exam). To be sure, there are plenty of students who think deeply and score well on tests—and plenty of students who do neither. But, as a rule, it appears that standardized-test results are positively correlated with a shallow approach to learning.

The time, energy, and money that are being devoted to preparing students for standardized tests have to come from somewhere. Schools across the country are cutting back or even eliminating programs in the arts, recess for young children, electives for high schoolers, class meetings (and other activities intended to promote social and moral learning), discussions about current events (since that material will not appear on the test), the use of literature in the early grades (if the tests are focused narrowly on decoding skills), and entire subject areas such as science (if the tests cover only language arts and math). Anyone who doubts the scope and significance of what is being sacrificed in the desperate quest to raise scores has not been inside a school lately.


Virtually all relevant experts and organizations condemn the practice of basing important decisions, such as graduation or promotion, on the results of a single test. The National Research Council takes this position, as do most other professional groups (such as the American Educational Research Association and the American Psychological Association).

Taken from http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/staiv.htm



So. What's your opinion?

[Todd]

I can't stand standardized tests. The score is what helps determine your future. Yet one single test on one single day does not represent what you've learned and know after 12 years of education and sure as hell don't represent how smart you are. Unfortunatley, you could have a higher GPA than most kids at Harvard, but if you're test score is lower than the average Harvard one becuase you're just not good at test taking, then you're screwed.

[emmmers]

Originally posted by Todd@Sep 23 2004, 05:05 PM
I can't stand standardized tests. The score is what helps determine your future. Yet one single test on one single day does not represent what you've learned and know after 12 years of education and sure as hell don't represent how smart you are. Unfortunatley, you could have a higher GPA than most kids at Harvard, but if you're test score is lower than the average Harvard one becuase you're just not good at test taking, then you're screwed.
Exactly, it's actually the No Child Left Untested act.

[Leslie]

I agree with you guys... standardized testing sucks. :rasberry:

[Glenn]

Standardized Testing is bullshit.

[Ander]

It is bad. So bad, my 8th grade English teacher spent all year preparing us and teaching us how the test works so we would score high. :lol: Mr. McCoy owned.

[Pinkin Lark]

Originally posted by Todd@Sep 23 2004, 06:05 PM
Yet one single test on one single day does not represent what you've learned and know after 12 years of education and sure as hell don't represent how smart you are.
dude todd, i could not agree with you more. that was very well said.

[Link04]

Originally posted by When.Karma.Attacks+Sep 24 2004, 01:18 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (When.Karma.Attacks @ Sep 24 2004, 01:18 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--Todd@Sep 23 2004, 05:05 PM
I can&#39;t stand standardized tests. The score is what helps determine your future. Yet one single test on one single day does not represent what you&#39;ve learned and know after 12 years of education and sure as hell don&#39;t represent how smart you are. Unfortunatley, you could have a higher GPA than most kids at Harvard, but if you&#39;re test score is lower than the average Harvard one becuase you&#39;re just not good at test taking, then you&#39;re screwed.
Exactly, it&#39;s actually the No Child Left Untested act. [/b][/quote]
Is that the same thing as the No Child Left Behind Act? I couldn&#39;t tell if you changed the name on purpose for a humorous effect, or whether there was another act. At any rate....the No Child Left Behind Act is idealistic at best. It&#39;s a rich get richer, poor get poorer situation. What happens is that people with slight mental disabilities or disorders that maybe should have special attention are thrown in with public schools, and some kids just plain refuse to try/learn. This drags the entire school down, which leads to the school getting it&#39;s funds cut, and those funds instead goes to surrounding schools, which in turn raise the bar, while your school is being reduced to a dunce academy.

[Whimsicality]

Originally posted by Link04+Sep 23 2004, 09:37 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Link04 @ Sep 23 2004, 09:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
Originally posted by -When.Karma.Attacks@Sep 24 2004, 01:18 AM
<!--QuoteBegin--Todd@Sep 23 2004, 05:05 PM
I can&#39;t stand standardized tests. The score is what helps determine your future. Yet one single test on one single day does not represent what you&#39;ve learned and know after 12 years of education and sure as hell don&#39;t represent how smart you are. Unfortunatley, you could have a higher GPA than most kids at Harvard, but if you&#39;re test score is lower than the average Harvard one becuase you&#39;re just not good at test taking, then you&#39;re screwed.
Exactly, it&#39;s actually the No Child Left Untested act.
Is that the same thing as the No Child Left Behind Act? I couldn&#39;t tell if you changed the name on purpose for a humorous effect, or whether there was another act. At any rate....the No Child Left Behind Act is idealistic at best. It&#39;s a rich get richer, poor get poorer situation. What happens is that people with slight mental disabilities or disorders that maybe should have special attention are thrown in with public schools, and some kids just plain refuse to try/learn. This drags the entire school down, which leads to the school getting it&#39;s funds cut, and those funds instead goes to surrounding schools, which in turn raise the bar, while your school is being reduced to a dunce academy. [/b][/quote]
It&#39;s not just the disabled who have trouble--the core fault with standardized testing is that it assumes people develop mentally and learn at the same speed.

I didn&#39;t start learning to read until I was 8 or 9. If I had been in school, instead of homeschooled, that would have been a real problem. But now I&#39;m an avid reader--I trade books with my Mom, a proffessional writer, often. So who cares that I learned to read late? In the long run does it make any difference?

Two people can be equally good at Algebra when they&#39;re 24, but if one of them is a slow learner and didn&#39;t get it when they were 18, they&#39;re screwed.

[Link04]

Very good point. And why should they suffer under the act if that&#39;s the case? They shouldn&#39;t.

[goso88]

Standardized testing is okay as long as you don&#39;t put stakes on it, like graduation. I think, despite all its controversy, it gives the general population an idea of what you&#39;ve learned in school. In school, you learn math and english and history. It just doesn&#39;t measure what you&#39;ve learned in life--art, music, character, morals, business acumen, and etc. WHich is why I don&#39;t agree on putting stakes on it.

[Syphon]

i think standerdised testing is really stupid. i agree with what everyone else here has said. All people are different you cant just use one test to compare them all.

in australia we dont have a test like the SAT. What we have is the TEE(in my state at least) which is a set of exams, each exam only on one subject. for example i am doing chemistry, economics, literature, human biology, accounting and intro calc (maths). i chose which subjects i wanted to do. also a person does not have to do TEE and they can chose to do less subjects. (6 is the max)

At the end of year 12 the TEE student sit exams for each of thier subjects. A students top 4 grades are then taken and turned into a single score. i think some of your in school tests score count a little bit. it is this score that determines if you can get into a uni course.

the best thing is the govt have decided that the TEE is bad and so the year after me dont have to do it. They have endo of year exams but it is thier in school work that counts more. I think that testing this way is better than a single standardized test because while you are still doing the same test as everyone else you can pick which subjects you are good at.

oh and anyone against the SAT should see the movie The Perfect Score.

[rosanna]

against against against.


they really have done nothing but make people freak out about their scores, take away class time, and let more people fool around when they should be taking something seriously.

[Todd]

Just to add on to what I said...

When I was in high school, we had to take your regular ACTs and SATs if we wanted a snowmans chance in hell of getting into college. Those were taken bright and early at 8 AM on Saturday mornings. (lots of fun :sleep:) but at least they didn&#39;t take away class time.

But then we had the MAPs...Missouri Assessment Program tests. It took a week out of class once a year. But the tests that we spent a week on didn&#39;t count for anything....colleges didn&#39;t see our score, the test scores didn&#39;t affect our GPA in any way, we still graduated regardless of the test score. The sole purpose was for the state of Missouri to evaluate how its public schools were doing. Problem is, the students knew the tests were meaningless to us so no one took them seriously. It wasn&#39;t like the SATs or ACTs where it could make or break your future. So a week of valuable class time was down the drain because of these dumb tests.

[Will]

I&#39;m against standardized testing. I think a college should look at your grades and your GPA to determine if you should be accepted, and not a number on a test. Those tests really mean nothing in the real world. My friend, Steve, got straight-A&#39;s all through school, and failed his ACT because he&#39;s terrible at taking tests. He didn&#39;t get in to the college he wanted because of that. "No Child Left Behind"? My ass.

[goso88]

I&#39;m against standardized testing. I think a college should look at your grades and your GPA to determine if you should be accepted, and not a number on a test. Those tests really mean nothing in the real world. My friend, Steve, got straight-A&#39;s all through school, and failed his ACT because he&#39;s terrible at taking tests. He didn&#39;t get in to the college he wanted because of that. "No Child Left Behind"? My ass.

God, do I know what you mean. Its ridiculously silly that they&#39;re deciding something as important as college on a stupid standardized test.

[Odaton]

Well, I&#39;m against standardized testing and I&#39;m glad everyone else has the same view. In Ontario, about 5 years ago, the Mike Harris Conservative government here (similar to your Democrats) brought in all these standardized tests (and wrecked our education/healthcare and other public services but I won&#39;t go on about that).

In public school we have to do these math/english tests that see how good we are. They aren&#39;t really worth anything, but they take a lot out of class time and are pretty pointless. In high school, you need to pass the Gr. 10 literacy test to pass high school. For most people who pass high school, the literacy test is easy enough but for some people with disabilities this could screw over their chances of getting a diploma and I think thats wrong. Even our teachers are getting tested :rolleyes: Which I think is a really dumb thing. They only way you can evaluate a teacher is by seeing them in the classroom.

[Neil]

Originally posted by Odaton@Sep 25 2004, 09:19 AM
Well, I&#39;m against standardized testing and I&#39;m glad everyone else has the same view. In Ontario, about 5 years ago, the Mike Harris Conservative government here (similar to your Democrats) brought in all these standardized tests (and wrecked our education/healthcare and other public services but I won&#39;t go on about that).

In public school we have to do these math/english tests that see how good we are. They aren&#39;t really worth anything, but they take a lot out of class time and are pretty pointless. In high school, you need to pass the Gr. 10 literacy test to pass high school. For most people who pass high school, the literacy test is easy enough but for some people with disabilities this could screw over their chances of getting a diploma and I think thats wrong. Even our teachers are getting tested :rolleyes: Which I think is a really dumb thing. They only way you can evaluate a teacher is by seeing them in the classroom.
I believe that all the testing except for the grade 10 literacy test is useless. Spending massive amounts of money just to see if our country is better in math/english etc than other countries? Total crap.

The grade 10 literacy test, on the other hand, is probably a useful thing seeings as a lot of people in grade 10 are far less developed literally than they should be. The preparation that is manditory for this exam is like a crunch-time for people who have issues with english. But on the other hand, the actual literacy test itself is total bullsh*t. Most of the questions focus on trying to trick you instead of challenge you. I passed it the first time I took it, but I know of many people, now in grade 12 who need to try to pass it so that they can graduate.