Post(s) tagged with "standardized testing"
The test quizzed students on such topics as colonization, the American Revolution, the Civil War and the contemporary United States. For example, one question asks fourth-graders why it was important for the United States to build canals in the 1800s.
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Report: Students don’t know much about history - US news - Life - msnbc.com (via infoneer-pulse)
What I tell my students all the time: history is important! Unfortunately, sometimes it is overlooked.
Source: MSNBC
“Virtually every state in the nation is working to develop high standards for what students should learn in school, along with means for assessing students’ progress. In a field where fads have ruled, we are seeing something new: a growing commitment to the idea that clear and shared goals for…
Source: cranestudenteducators
She says the tests are not accurate measures of accomplishment, create undue anxiety for students and are used to punish schools.
She gives the example of her sons’ award-winning school, Park Forest Elementary, which last year was put on “warning” status after the school’s special education students fell below the level of progress the state expects on their exams.
“The more I looked at it, the more outraged I became,” Gray said, “This is not something I want to be contributing to (or) something I want my children participating in.”
Teachers typically proctor their own students’ tests, especially in the early grades, to make students more comfortable. On test days, that means teachers must shut off the conditioned response to questions they get from students the rest of the year: “What do I do next?” or “What does this word mean?” When it comes to state tests, the only answer should be, “I can’t help you.”
Robert Hamann, a veteran social studies teacher, had been volunteering to help students at Scarlet Oaks Career Center in the Cincinnati area. So he already knew the senior taking the graduation-mandatory writing test.
Confused by the test instructions, the student asked for help. He told her to use the strategies they had discussed, and she began to string together a written answer. With each halting sentence, she looked to him for approval and he told her to write it down.
“In a moment of trying to help this kid, I kind of lost myself,” Hamann says of the 2005 incident. “This was what we had been doing in review. … This kid is in 12th grade trying to pass a ninth-grade test. This is her last shot. So, you’re explaining, explaining, explaining, and I think I gave her too much information.”
Standardized exams — the multiple-choice, bubble tests in math and reading that have played a growing role in American public education in recent years — are being overhauled.
Source: ladyprice
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Who I am: A third year high school history teacher at an urban(ish) high school in New Jersey.
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