I was just taking a quick look at the BBC, trying to get some news on China. The earthquake wasn't covered well by MSM in the USA. I guess they figure there aren't enough Chinese in the USA to give it coverage. Who are the racists running the media? Anyway I stumbled onto the following from the BBC: "Pupils in England on average take 70 national tests while at school; 54,000 examiners employed in national tests;25 million test papers each year" The conclusion was that they still need national testing but that teachers shouldn't spend as much time teaching to the test. How can we be so stupid when we're discussing education?
This is what I used to tell my students. Let assume that you, the students, developed the test. What would be the contents? My best guess would be a test that has questions dealing with use of cell phones, computers, popular video games. If that test were given to students they would excel or would be very interested in improving their skills.
Let's give that test to our adult population. How well would most of us fair on a student developed test? My best guess, not so good. And I'm not so sure that failing adults would be interested in improving!
The next question coming to my teacher mind is why have we been taught to think that a test is so valuable for assessing student knowledge? It isn't, of course. Testing only gives a brief picture. Never should it be used to evaluate teachers or schools because then they'll do what one would expect - teach to the test. Teaching to the test limits the scope of teaching. Also, teachers will be killing each other to get the better students. The testing will only prove what we already know.
In the old days, our colleges taught us not to teach to the test. I thank them for that - I never did. The results that I got were awful and I didn't care. My students were as successful as any others and often that was an achievement in itself. I often got a class full of very active males because I was a male in an elementary school. Some of the female teachers claimed that they wouldn't do well with all those males. I'm very suspicious of that claim. Many of them would have done much better than I.
Judging education through testing is stupid. It's that simple. Students and education can't be turned into items that are easily evaluated. Their lives are complex; their families are very complex; their skills and aptitudes are quite varied. So, wanting them all to become skilled in math and science is stupid. Some of them don't have the aptitude for science and math. Some of them have the aptitude for history and government. We need them, too.
Many of them could give us a test that we would fail. I'll bet we wouldn't feel so good about that. So why do we want our young students to feel so bad because of failing tests that we develop?
Remember that all tests are short cuts. There is always a better way to get knowledge about the student but it takes longer than a test. SATs were meant to be predictors of how well one would do as a Freshman in college not what they have become. The SAT was meant to be a way to integrate Harvard with students who were from the other side of the tracks. Now it is used to keep them out of Harvard.