Can anyone tell me the benefit of all of this standardize testing?

Question

I tutor in a middle school and rencently they were told that they can drop all of their other curriculum and only do test prep for the next ten weeks. So teachers are dropping Social Studies, Science, and Language Arts. All the teachers must drop their reading curriculum. The kids are good at test taking, but they cannot think for themselves. How is this possibly a good thing? Is anyone as outraged about this as I am?

Answer 1

This is a situation repeated in school afetr school, district after district across the nation. The test prep is primarily aimed at achieving the proficiency goals set by "No Child Left Behind". The goals must be met in order to continue to recieve federal funding for schools. You are right on target about students becoming good test-takers, but this is the only "benefit" of all of this testing and it is not a particularly great benefit.
Students will learn some things during test prep, some problem solving skills and reading and writing skills, but these are limited to test oriented material. I suppose one outcome will be a generation of good trivia players. Colleges and Universities are beginning to notice that younger classes are coming in wanting to know exactly what is on each exam they take. They do not want to study anything that may not be tested. It is a numbers game and we, the teachersa, are caught in it. This will pass, with some detriment, but not permanent harm to students. I suppose that one benefit will be better SAT scores, not because students are becoming any smarter, but they are getting very good at tests.

Answer 2

The only benifit is that the information can be quantified. Thus a child or school can be compared to another.
In terms of real learning though, that is qualitative. Many fall through the cracks when they don't fit into a pre-set mode. Many of these students know the content but can not express that in a standardized test.

I think standardized test are getting more common because parents are getting more competetive with knowing how good or smart their kid is compared to others.

Answer 3

I too was a voluntary math tutor for Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry, and Calculus. I lasted for four years but finally quit in disgust when a decision was made to try and teach the students how to pass the standardized tests instead of teaching them mathematics. Many important parts of math were not taught because it had been determined that these particular parts would not be on the test. Computers were used to try to determine what areas a student was weak in, and then go over and over representative questions until the student finally "passed" that weak area. Actually, the student learned nothing;he/she merely memorized a few things sufficient for the computer to say they had now mastered the area.

The testing is a joke. The criteria for passing them is constantly being made easier and easier and the student is allowed to take these tests up to five times. It is a ridiculous dumbing down of American students. America now ranks 16th in mathematics and spends four times as much money as the leading country.

What are the root causes of this? In my opinion it is a combination of:
the NEA and its insistence on rewarding poor teachers
parents who do not ensure their children study/ do homework
lack of discipline in school
too much TV
Inability of state and federal governments to implement a plan
too much political correctness influencing what is taught

I loved tutoring. But enough was enough. God help us.

Answer 4

Yeah,. don't you love how education takes a backseat to standardized testing which often decides how much additional funding a school gets, thus the motivation to scrap everything else? I can only imagine this is a public school... which most people know these days,.. the majority of which are terrible.

Answer 5

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