Comment by DoreenMichele
6 years ago
Standardized tests are designed to serve the needs of the school. Such tests let the teacher and school system assess multiple students efficiently and -- theoretically -- "fairly." They aren't actually designed to serve the needs of students.
If the students only knew what their needs were. My students need "word problems". Their schooling didn't teach them how to deal with ambiguity or how to make a reasoned argument. Also, in real life you won't encounter the right answer plus four decoy answers.
But they want check-a-box tests. They even went to complain to administration because they weren't getting any. Apparently, I'm asking erroneous [sic!] questions in class. You despair, you do.
>Also, in real life you won't encounter the right answer plus four decoy answers.
On the contrary, if you've ever looked for programming help on stack overflow you'll be quite familiar with the real life experience of being presented with a right answer and 4 or more decoys.
That's a simplistic way to put it (or just have a jab at stackoverflow).
Overall, if your question has an answer there, it's not a hard one...
I hear you.
I took a college class. Environmental Biology, iirc. We were running out of time and the professor announced she would be cutting a few things from the curriculum.
Everyone was all "Hurrah! Yes! Less work! Feel free to cut even more and just give us As for doing nothing!"
Except me. I was the killjoy going "What if you actually need to know this stuff for a future class? Or even your job?!"
Everyone gave me the stink eye. I'm such a party pooper.
Perhaps they gave you the stink eye because they felt the curriculum was useless, which is actually quite likely in a typical secondary school?
Well, getting a good picture of how a student is doing is important for teaching them properly, so test that provides such a picture efficiently would be serve to clarify the actual needs of the students.
The problem is that tests tend to be subverted into tools for ranking the students, which doesn't serve their learning.
A test is merely a tool. In the hands of a skilled professional, it can help cast light on the needs of the students.
In actual practice, they tend to not be used that way.
Unfortunately, the tests also serve as a driver for the curriculum. Take poetry off the standardized test, and they will have to stop teaching it, because it would take time away from some other tested topic.
They don't even serve the needs of the school (certainly not of the teachers, who we assume are in this for the kids). They serve the needs of the administrators and politicians.
They serve the needs of Pearson -- the Intuit of K-12 education.