Reply to Study says standardized testing is overwhelming nation’s public schools

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'd be really curious to dig into the data to understand exactly what they're describing as standardized/mandated testing. For instance, the chart shows that the average number of mandated tests in kindergarten is 6. Sure, my child probably did around that last year, if you count every single reading and math assessment done at the beginning, middle and end of the year to find out where the child was starting from (essential for differentiated instruction, which everyone seems to love), and to confirm how he was progressing. They were barely a blip for him, and I can't imagine how a teacher could feasibly determine everyone's skill level at the beginning of the year, and then provide parents with concrete feedback on how their kids were doing at the end of the year, without doing *something*. [/quote]

I want to know this, too.

And I also want to know what prepping for the test means. If a test covers the curriculum in a meaningful way, you teach to the curriculum which is teaching to the test.  In theory, I see no problem with this.  If, however, the tests, curriculum, and teaching are not aligned, or if the curriculum or tests are not addressing the key knowledge and skills we value, and if teachers then "teach to the test/curriculum" then, yup, a waste of time.

Any good educator needs to be constantly assessing what he/she is teaching and what his/her students know. The question is, how do they do that?  How are they communicating their results to others (because parents, other teachers, and administrators need to be certain kids are learning, too)? There has to be some level of consistency in the system so the stakeholders can understand and trust each other.

As you can see, I'm not anti-testing. But I do care that it's done right.  It's not sufficient for me that a teacher says, "Oh, your kid is doing fine." In fact, I spent $$$ recently for an independent evaluator to administer a bunch of standardized assessments to confirm and more specifically zero in on what I had suspected all along was a learning challenge that the classroom teachers and school instructional support staff had pooh-poohed.

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