RSS
Home
Grant money - now we must teach to the test
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
“…we want you all to understand that there’s nothing more important than what you're doing right here at this school," declared President Obama at Wright Middle School in Wisconsin Wednesday.
If Wright Middle School is anything like so many across the country, the emphasis, and the impetus, is learning to do well on state-required and now federally mandated tests.
“And we are spending a lot of money to try to improve school buildings and put computers in and make sure that your teachers are well trained and that they are getting the support they need.”
Yes, and again, it is so that the students do well when they take those end-of –year state tests. There is no national test for public schools.
“…..nothing is going to be more important to you than just being hungry for knowledge.”
I wish it were so.
Turn up the pressure. Turn off the students (and teachers).
We are in the “Race to the Top”, the $4.35 billion education program funded through the Recovery Act. States are competing for the funds, and to enter they must link teacher pay to student achievement on these tests.
There is everything right with teaching students how to take tests. I did this throughout my career, and still do so when I have the opportunity as a substitute teacher.
I find even to this day that most students have not learned test discipline: how not to linger too long on difficult questions, but to make a best guess and mark the answer in order to check back when finished; how to not “sit quietly and read” when finished, as the test directions will often instruct, but to go back and check and spot check right until time is called; how to be sure to look at every picture or drawing carefully and read every caption, since test questions will often be derived from these.
But I did not teach “to the test”, as teachers are forced to today. They spend a lot of class time and budget using materials designed to simulate the types of questions which would be on the state tests. They do this rather than emphasizing all sorts of learning modalities, opportunities, and experiences.
Charter schools are receiving more recognition from the Obama Administration, as they should. We advance the cause of learning by expanding upon the avenues we present. We must provide more than just lip service to this movement which explores varied levels of student involvement and interaction.
But as I consider the 7th and 8th graders I taught today, as they struggle to differentiate between binomials and trinomials and to simplify them when presented in non standard form, while at the same time having no idea how to calculate the sales tax on a $19,500 Chevrolet, I cringe.
The state tests of today provide no warranty as to future success. They simply serve as a tool to distinguish between competing schools, and now, states for the pot of gold.
Our children need to be educated. Their parents and the teachers must be held accountable.
But a great education involves learning for life and the tests it presents, not just those piddling ones conjured up by test gurus .
This includes understanding how to get along with others, to respect ourselves and our neighbors, to know right from wrong, to appreciate the arts and the history of Nature and Mankind, to calculate the cost of a mortgage and compare it to income and budget, to delve and explore through reading and the sciences, as well as, one must not forget……. how to differentiate between binomials and trinomials.
Be sure to join in and become part of the article by hitting the "Comment" icon above and stating your opinion.
If you hit the "Subscribe" icon, you will receive a brief notice whenever Peter McBride publishes a new article.
Related Articles:
Comments
