Not to beat a dead horse here, as I know the issue of standardized testing has been discussed at length... but I had an interesting experience today which confirmed my suspicion that standardized tests are a pretty dodgy measure of student achievement. Today, all the elementary teachers in New York had to grade the statewide math tests our students took a couple of weeks ago. That is, we graded the tests from other schools, not our own. So here's my rant. The question I was grading was something like, "Name two properties that all rectangles have in common." The question was worth one point. According to the state rubric, acceptable answers included: -they have 4 sides -they have 4 corners/angles -they have 2 lines of symmetry -they have all right angles -opposite sides are parallel -opposite sides are the same length. If the student wrote any two of the above, the child earned the full point. If the student wrote only one of the above, no point. Oh, and one more thing. The student could also answer: -they have two long sides and two short sides. So, of course, I pointed out that that last one is blatantly incorrect. All rectangles do not have two long sides and two short sides. Squares are rectangles, too. I was told that it the state disagreed with me. The answer was perfectly acceptable. So I asked, are any of these acceptable? -they are polygons -they are 2-dimensional -they are plane figures -they have straight sides -they are closed figures -they have corners/angles I was told that none of those answers qualified - even though every single one of them correcly answers the question as written. To me, this exemplifies one of the major flaws in standardized testing. The tests are faulty! They do not accurately measure a student's understanding of the concepts. A student who answered, "Rectangles all have four sides and two are long and two are short and they are always really big and they have to be purple and no lines can be parrallel but they have to be tall and skinny," would earn full credit. That student named two of the properties listed as acceptable answers. On the other hand, a student who answered "Rectangles are polygons, which are closed, 2-dimensional plane figures, and they have four flat sides. Some have right angles," would get no credit at all. Nice, huh?
In grad school, I worked over the summers grading standardized tests. The job was a real grind, and the nonstudent employees were some of the dumbest people I've ever met. For instance, we once graded a question about political science with criteria similar to those that Demosthenes mentions above. I won't get into the nitty-gritty of the question other than to note that the answer "mudslinging" wasn't permitted. Two or three people on my 10-person team could never successfully get their heads around this simple criterion. Roughly once every ten minutes for three days, one of them would ask the team leader, "This one says, 'Because of mud slinging.' Is that okay? No? How about this one: 'Due to mudslinging.' How about that one?" On my last project, I was fired during the training module because my scores didn't calibrate with the scores for the rest of the group. How was I informed that I'd been dismissed? Well, the person in charge of the project read the names of everybody who had failed. I then packed up my stuff and left the room. We graded the essays on the basis of several criteria on the scale of zero to six. The criterion that killed me was "tone." That's right: I was supposed to read a three-paragraph essay and rate its tone. The bigger problem was that I felt that shorter or less-complete essays could still have the "correct" tone, whatever that meant; the persons in charge disagreed. When I pled my case before one of the highers-up, she told me, in as condescending voice as you could imagine, that sometimes really well-educated people like me had problems with basic English grammar and style. I was fired, in other words, by idiots. The person who had sat behind me was a 30-ish, obese man with greasy skin, acne, and a dark peach-fuzz mustache; he moaned and groaned constantly, and he drew pictures of Darth Maul in his notebook during downtime. The person who sat to my left was a 50-ish man who tucked his shirt into his ratty underwear, so that when he bent over, everyone got an eyeful of his filthy tighty-whities. Another person on my "team" was a woman I had slept with the previous summer and had expected never to see again. The people who worked full time at this place were the biggest bunch of douchebags and losers I've ever encountered. While I did get my comeuppance--I've had a successful life, both professionally and personally--it gauls me to think that some kid's college plans rest in the hands of adults who doodle Darth Maul in their notebooks.
A timed 400m sprint followed by a bitter three-way fight between the student, a German Sheperd and the local Girl's Varsity Lacrosse coach. Only the strong survive!
Not trying to pick a fight as I think I understand the genuine frustration in your original post, but I'm curious how you would define "performance-based assessment," especially given that standardized tests assess performance--albeit in a limited way. How would you develop performance standards that are the same across geographical location?
Standardized tests are, more than anything, a waste of time. Currently, I'm going to basically lose an entire week of school in late April so I can take all the exit-level standardized exams for the State of Texas, which are unbelievably easy and trite; it's not uncommon to get a perfect score. And as a result, I'm going to miss an entire week of time to get ready for the AP US History exam that's a week or two later (and trust me, we're ********ing flying. As it stands, we're at Pearl Harbor and we have less than a month - because of standardized testing - to get up to now).
You're at Pearl Harbor? Wow, you should be somewhat thankful; in my AP US History class we're barely finishing the New Deal Era.
haha.. yep, sounds like my ap amer hist too... i don't think we even finished the new deal in detail. everything later was just bullet points.
We only did the Depression and New Deal a chapter ago. I don't know what book you're using, but for us, they put Pearl Harbor in at the very end of Chapter 35 (and obviously, Chapter 36 is WWII). But we're moving fast to make sure we cover everything in enough detail where we can write an essay on it.
Completely. Every state currently has different performance standards. Is that a problem? I think if you take some time to investigate the performance standards of various states and school districts, you will find that there is no problem with the standards.
I don't want to sound like I am ranting so I will spare everyone a long post. I really don't want to have to explain the problems with New York State's Regents exams. It's just frustrating when people accept the kind of garbage thrown by our public education system to the bright future of America without knowing what goes on in the classrooms and schools. I speak mostly for my peers, as well as respected educators in High School who are either angry or tired of the situation. In my opinion, the standardized tests in New York State are a complete failure in trying to bring a fully educated, creative, and well rounded work force into America.
Has anyone noticed a trend of people pursing degrees in Education Administration? That is the logical progression, for people dissatisfied with the system, to try and change it.
Good thought, although I believe it is too difficult to make changes in the system. The higher ups in the education system will always have the final say. No state or district is willing to change anything because every district wants to keep their own budget safe. However, slowly the rest of the United States has started abandoning state regents exams while New York seems satisfied with them.
Assessed by whom? Standardized tests should be not be THE determinative factor, but we need some sort of examination of standards. Otherwise how would we even know if we need to improve or not? A quick story - I wasn't placed into advanced English in 8th grade due to one of the stupid cluster********s ever designed by an educator (my math portion of the IQ score was too low because I hate puzzles, so I was placed into the advanced math class but not the "gifted and talented" English class). So, after one year I decided to take the Honors class in high school and did very well for the next four years. Does this mean that the test was bad? No. It just means it was used stupidly. So long as we don't set our policy by tests alone, they're not a bad thing. But if a kid can't read, I don't care if its by Balalama standards or by Upper West Side standards.
I would never say there's no place for standardized tests. It would be more accurate to say I'm against high-stakes testing. Ask any teacher which children in his/her class are meeting the standards, and he/she will tell you, with remarkable accuracy. Teachers work with students every day for 180 days. Then don't really need a standardized test to tell them who can read and who can't.