Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Wednesday, January 24. 2024

Taking tests in school


Tests were always useful to me, same as tests are for me in the gym. Otherwise, it's hard to know how you are doing. Finding out your strengths and weaknesses, etc. Sometimes painful, but of course. If you don't care, fine. 


 EDUCATIONAL TESTING AND THE WAR ON REALITY & COMMON SENSE



Posted by Bird Dog at 15:31 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

I don't know what the current testing regimen and criteria in TX is, but in the '90s, the criteria for passing the high school math test in TX was competence in 8th grade math.

Would one not want a high school graduate not in a Special Ed program to be competent in 8th grade math?

I recall a student in the spring of his senior year being all bent out of shape because a college he wanted to attend would not finalize his acceptance until he had passed the high school math exit test (then TAAS). Wouldn't a college want its freshman students to at least be competent in 8th grade math?

I spent some years subbing and a year teaching math at a low-rated middle school in TX. It got its pass rates in math up from 25% to 65%. Teachers did that by breaking down the TAAS requirements piece by piece, and testing minutely for those skills. Reteach those which are not mastered. Rinse and repeat.
#1 Gringo on 2024-01-24 17:34 (Reply)
Another reason for the Education Mafia to fight Standardized Testing is to hide the truly abysmal job that teachers, as a profession, have done.
#2 Robert Sendler on 2024-01-24 19:03 (Reply)
Our province still has Grade XII exams, and there is a push on to eliminate them. But, back in the day, one offspring welcomed those exams as a means of proving was just as good as or better than the "student du jour". As I recall, kid proved the point; when graded anonymously, did do extremely well and outdid the favoured one.
#3 Frances on 2024-01-24 23:01 (Reply)
As I recall, kid proved the point; when graded anonymously, did do extremely well and outdid the favoured one.
Yes, there is occasionally some favoritism in grading. When I was in high school, I heard that two students in my sister's class, one an A student and the other a C+ student, switched their homework assignments. (Book report?). The A student took what the C+ student had done for the assignment, copied it , and got an A. The C+ student took what the A student had done for the assignment, copied it, and got a C+. I heard this from the C+ student. Brand recognition?
#3.1 Gringo on 2024-01-25 00:02 (Reply)
Kindergarden to PhD...23 years of school and I took lots of tests. Don't remember a one of them.
#4 rocdoctom on 2024-01-25 11:01 (Reply)
QUOTE:
The idea is, of course, that men are successful because they have gone to college. No idea was ever more absurd. No man is successful because he has managed to pass a certain number of courses and has received a sheepskin which tells the world in Latin, that neither the world nor the graduate can read, that he has successfully completed the work required. If the man is successful, it is because he has the qualities for success in him;
Marks, Percy, "Under Glass", Scribner's Magazine Vol 73, 1923, p 47

Schooling/college used to train students on how to learn, on their own. But where's the profit if students learn they don't need to pay for more "education" to learn things.
#4.1 JK Brown on 2024-01-25 16:03 (Reply)
Best part of homeschooling (for me) was knowing immediately when my kids were struggling with material. Later, when they went to high school, I got really pissed off at the teachers (math) because they wouldn't send home the tests so I could see where they were having trouble. I'd find out weeks later.
#5 Jimbo on 2024-01-25 11:31 (Reply)
Paul Graham wrote an excellent essay in December 2019 on how schooling is all about getting the good grade, passing the tests, not real learning.

And the good students learn to "hack the test" or what to focus on to get the grade. Of course, then forget most of what they "learned" since they have to move on to the next test in the next class. To be successful in life, you have to overcome this conditioning as outside school and bureaucracies, real learning is of value not knowing how to perform on tests.

QUOTE:
The most damaging thing you learned in school wasn't something you learned in any specific class. It was learning to get good grades.

When I was in college, a particularly earnest philosophy grad student once told me that he never cared what grade he got in a class, only what he learned in it. This stuck in my mind because it was the only time I ever heard anyone say such a thing.

For me, as for most students, the measurement of what I was learning completely dominated actual learning in college. I was fairly earnest; I was genuinely interested in most of the classes I took, and I worked hard. And yet I worked by far the hardest when I was studying for a test.
#6 JK Brown on 2024-01-25 15:57 (Reply)
Teachers also fight testing because it would expose how bad a job they are doing.
#7 Robert Sendler on 2024-01-27 10:45 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.