You want to talk about learning loss? Then talk about all the learning lost to high stakes testing. 1/
— Peter Greene (@palan57) March 1, 2022
Not just the test itself, but the time spent in test prep and just plain learning how to take that kind of test and speak the test manufacturers' language. Plus the pre-test tests (to see how well we're on track for the test) 2/
— Peter Greene (@palan57) March 1, 2022
People who have not been in the classroom for the last couple of decades have no idea how much education time has been eroded by high stakes testing. 3/
— Peter Greene (@palan57) March 1, 2022
Want to address learning loss? Never mind tutoring and summer school. In most schools. you could add 6-10 weeks of instruction just by completely scrapping the Big Standardized Test. 4/
— Peter Greene (@palan57) March 1, 2022
And it wouldn't cost the taxpayers a cent. But it would make test manufacturers and the Data Gods sad. "But we need the data to address the problem," say testocrats. 5/
— Peter Greene (@palan57) March 1, 2022
It's a Kafkaesque bad office joke--let's make people spend more time drawing up reports on how the job is going so that they spend less and less time actually doing the job. 6/
— Peter Greene (@palan57) March 1, 2022
Note also that we have the research telling us the data collected doesn't help improve test scores https://t.co/OG4TdXbMRQ 7/
— Peter Greene (@palan57) March 1, 2022
And test data isn't any good at improving teacher evaluation, either.https://t.co/Fs3pO6Kj2S 8/
— Peter Greene (@palan57) March 1, 2022
It is amazing to me that twenty-some years on, we are still here. Responders included a huge number of teachers telling stories of the time lost to testing and test prep, plus a much smaller assortment of people saying things like "But how will we know how students are doing" and "If you just teach 'em good, the test scores will take care of themselves."
How can we be a whole generation down the road and still be wasting time on the Big Standardized Test as if it were a valuable data-gathering tool that told us Many Useful Things about education? How can the backbone of our educational accountability systems be a bad test that, in its high-stakes threats, brings more damage than help?
Sadly, I do not think this is ever going to happen. Expensive things only stick around in government when they fulfill some sort of need. Unfortunately, the need being filled by big standardized tests has nothing at all to do with educating children. It is a tool of control, and a source of political ammunition either for the home team or against the opposing team. It allows our political leaders to look like they are doing something even though all they are doing is re-measuring the same thing over and over again. It helps pin blame on teachers and administrators for things outside of their control, and reduces a big, messy, complicated issue into a neat little numerical measurement that the folks at home believe they can understand. I believe these are the true goals of standardized testing, and in those terms they have been wildly successful.
ReplyDeleteYou said so much on a social media platform known for short messages. Most of what is wrong in public education can be set straight by just getting rid of the BS tests. And again, another administration elected with a campaign promise to get rid of the standardized testing and CC curriculum and public schools are still smack dab in the middle of testing torture. This is getting old.
ReplyDeleteLearning loss produced by the expansion of the Null Curriculum has been unprecedented under RTTT/NCLB waiver. Not only has science, history, geography, music, and the arts been placed on the far back burner (flame off), but the two tested subjects, math and ELA have been narrowed down to the small handful of tested Common Core standards. There is not a K to 12 public school student alive who has experienced anything but the test obsessed version of schooling.
ReplyDeleteEnough clearly isn't enough.