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Test Prep in Public Schools

AlaskaBushPilot

Illuminator
Joined
Nov 6, 2010
Messages
4,341
We follow the school calendar and curricula from our local district. I was surprised to find they had two whole weeks blocked out for testing at the end of this semester, and then the rest of the school year on half-days and what-not, kind of coasting into summer break.

If I understand correctly after inquiring, in our case the test would only be 50 minutes. So it's almost two full weeks of prep for one test. Turns out this is pretty common:

http://www.ewa.org/blog-educated-reporter/testing-and-test-prep-how-much-too-much

There's a survey in that article where 1% of teachers think not enough time is spent on mandated standardized test prep. They probably rounded up to that 1%, lol. So I wasn't out of line with my first impression this is way too much time.

The fact it's the last "event" of the year in this district and that the schedule is pretty lazy for the remainder means it really crowded out a lot more than two weeks.

I suppose it is just one more reason why, in Kindergarten, after a whole year of full days the math standard is the ability to count to 20. That's more than five days on each number, so those kids must know each number like the back of their hand.

Since we teach privately and can't even get ahold of these tests it is a mystery what is going on for two whole weeks preparing for them. Or why preparing for these tests is so different from what you do normally in school.

Logically, if the tests are measuring what you are supposed to be learning in school then why is it blocked out separately, something fundamentally different from the curricula? For so long?
 
Maybe it takes two weeks for the teachers to find the biased questions(based on race, culture, sexual orientation, language etc..) so they can point them out to the children in advance. :rolleyes:
 
Maybe so. I have no idea. We take a lot of tests, whatever we can steal online for free, and use them as both a self-assessment and teaching tool.

Teaching "from" the test instead of teaching "to" the test. A de-briefing. Several things I don't like about tests we see, first and foremost a lot of poorly constructed questions and answers. So we get to talk over what we infer the question is supposed to be getting at and why it isn't such a good question.

But we don't prepare for them.

The more I think about it, the more curious I am exactly what is going on: how much about the tests the teachers or administrators know. Whether they see the actual tests or not. Whether they come with pre-packaged prep materials.
 
In school districts, those tests are very high stakes. My kids went to public school here in South Texas and, indeed, there were at least a couple of weeks set aside for preparing to take the state test. Those weeks were spent taking practice tests and having pep-rallies, mostly. My sister-in-law is an elementary school principal and this week is the week for testing. She's been under a lot of stress because she's a first-year principal and most of her job evaluation is based on how well her students improve from one year to the next. In December, the kids took a preliminary test. Based on those results, the teachers focused their lessons for the second semester on the areas the kids had trouble. For the last three weeks, they have been doing practice tests, individual tutoring and lots of pep rallies. Every day for the last week, there was a pep rally capped off by a big all-day party (field day, motivational speakers, pizza, dancing, etc) on Friday to let the kids blow off steam.

It's a circus, in my experience and I don't know that we are actually doing the kids any good with this crazy focus on the test.
 
In preparation for the GRE, I studied English vocabulary for a few hours each day for six weeks. This was possibly the best use of my time on a per-hour basis for educational purposes in my entire life. The expanded vocabulary I gained has stayed with me, plus I brought my probable GRE verbal score from high average to top few percent (it was primarily vocabulary that would have held me back), and had my choice of grad schools and research assistantships (other two portions of the test and subject test were high scores without prep).
 
In school districts, those tests are very high stakes. My kids went to public school here in South Texas and, indeed, there were at least a couple of weeks set aside for preparing to take the state test. Those weeks were spent taking practice tests and having pep-rallies, mostly. My sister-in-law is an elementary school principal and this week is the week for testing. She's been under a lot of stress because she's a first-year principal and most of her job evaluation is based on how well her students improve from one year to the next. In December, the kids took a preliminary test. Based on those results, the teachers focused their lessons for the second semester on the areas the kids had trouble. For the last three weeks, they have been doing practice tests, individual tutoring and lots of pep rallies. Every day for the last week, there was a pep rally capped off by a big all-day party (field day, motivational speakers, pizza, dancing, etc) on Friday to let the kids blow off steam.

It's a circus, in my experience and I don't know that we are actually doing the kids any good with this crazy focus on the test.

Thanks.

Very interesting. The pep rallies are discussed in that article as the thing the teachers liked least about the whole circus.

The part about winding down/blowing off steam - that's what I was seeing in our school schedule. Coasting on into summer break.

The practice tests, yes - that would make sense. We also see this absurd notion of "continuous improvement" in our district's evaluation policies. If you are the best school in the world last year and had no improvement, then you didn't do well?
 
Maybe it takes two weeks for the teachers to find the biased questions(based on race, culture, sexual orientation, language etc..) so they can point them out to the children in advance. :rolleyes:

In most/probably all state school systems the test for each grade is the same for all students, the teachers can be fired or even arrested if found looking at the actual test questions (though not the ones in the practice tests). The tests are also randomly checked for stray erasures to make sure the test answers are not being changed by the teacher. We lost several teachers in Florida for that little trick - as well as at least one principal!!!


By the by, I assume your suggestion is for giggles as, again, and more precisely the kids will not have any access to the test prior to the test and no access after the test.
 
In school districts, those tests are very high stakes. My kids went to public school here in South Texas and, indeed, there were at least a couple of weeks set aside for preparing to take the state test. Those weeks were spent taking practice tests and having pep-rallies, mostly. My sister-in-law is an elementary school principal and this week is the week for testing. She's been under a lot of stress because she's a first-year principal and most of her job evaluation is based on how well her students improve from one year to the next. In December, the kids took a preliminary test. Based on those results, the teachers focused their lessons for the second semester on the areas the kids had trouble. For the last three weeks, they have been doing practice tests, individual tutoring and lots of pep rallies. Every day for the last week, there was a pep rally capped off by a big all-day party (field day, motivational speakers, pizza, dancing, etc) on Friday to let the kids blow off steam.

It's a circus, in my experience and I don't know that we are actually doing the kids any good with this crazy focus on the test.
By the by and related the BFT (Big......Test) in FL is (unless they have changed recently) is graded by computer and as the questions are point variable it stops grading your test as soon as it hits a point count number of wrong answers (point count varies and is more points for harder questions)
 
Maybe so. I have no idea. We take a lot of tests, whatever we can steal online for free, and use them as both a self-assessment and teaching tool.

Teaching "from" the test instead of teaching "to" the test. A de-briefing. Several things I don't like about tests we see, first and foremost a lot of poorly constructed questions and answers. So we get to talk over what we infer the question is supposed to be getting at and why it isn't such a good question.

But we don't prepare for them.

The more I think about it, the more curious I am exactly what is going on: how much about the tests the teachers or administrators know. Whether they see the actual tests or not. Whether they come with pre-packaged prep materials.
Again I can only speak for Florida but if we were caught looking at an actual test/helping a student understand the question/ standing over a student so we could read the questions, we would be looking for a new field to work in - if we did not go to jail (the law really is on here in FL).
IIRC it is a misdemeanor but a career killer!!!!!.

However, when we got rebound not used anymore versions of the test we did find a good number of errors/poor directions and the occasional one where the answer they wanted was clearly incorrect!!!!!
 
In preparation for the GRE, I studied English vocabulary for a few hours each day for six weeks. This was possibly the best use of my time on a per-hour basis for educational purposes in my entire life. The expanded vocabulary I gained has stayed with me, plus I brought my probable GRE verbal score from high average to top few percent (it was primarily vocabulary that would have held me back), and had my choice of grad schools and research assistantships (other two portions of the test and subject test were high scores without prep).

GRE is vastly different from the state public school tests but since I was in the first grade I never had any difficulty with standardized tests. Actually learned from them to visualize flat to 3D objects when folded properly(folding them mentally not physically). Got a book on testing when I was in 9th grade and discovered there was nothing in it I did not already know and use - both surprised and pleased!!!!!
 
Thanks.

Very interesting. The pep rallies are discussed in that article as the thing the teachers liked least about the whole circus.

The part about winding down/blowing off steam - that's what I was seeing in our school schedule. Coasting on into summer break.

The practice tests, yes - that would make sense. We also see this absurd notion of "continuous improvement" in our district's evaluation policies. If you are the best school in the world last year and had no improvement, then you didn't do well?

Correct!!! Teaching the schools by fear!!! Dumb **** eaters!!!!!
 
Again I can only speak for Florida but if we were caught looking at an actual test/helping a student understand the question/ standing over a student so we could read the questions, we would be looking for a new field to work in - if we did not go to jail (the law really is on here in FL).
IIRC it is a misdemeanor but a career killer!!!!!.

Yeah, the question I had about that aspect is whether the kids are de-briefed on tests. I don't recall doing it in my public school education, but we do it now.

However, when we got rebound not used anymore versions of the test we did find a good number of errors/poor directions and the occasional one where the answer they wanted was clearly incorrect!!!!!

Yes, this is why going over the tests, de-briefing, is a good idea. Along with discriminating between technically correct answers and the "best" answer.

Maybe they do that on these practice tests they are taking earlier in the year.
 
But surely learning as much vocabulary as possible, including subtle shades of meaning, is a major help for any verbal test.

I was going to comment on what you originally wrote, and yes this seems like a great thing to do no matter the age.

We do drilling too, this is elementary school so it's addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division tables in kindergarten and a lot of algebra, graphing,and finding first derivatives in first grade.

Most days they make up their own math problems. It just has to meet the requirements. Lots of different aspects to teaching material, all of which can lend itself to doing well on tests.
 
Yeah, the question I had about that aspect is whether the kids are de-briefed on tests. I don't recall doing it in my public school education, but we do it now.



Yes, this is why going over the tests, de-briefing, is a good idea. Along with discriminating between technically correct answers and the "best" answer.

Maybe they do that on these practice tests they are taking earlier in the year.
The practice tests can be purely selected questions (in the proper ratio to match tests as they are given) from the older tests or they can be made up new but hopefully related to the structure and nature and difficulty of those that will be on the real test. That does not in any way mean that it is how it is done, but it is how we were told it was done.

Just in case, teachers/the schools cannot in any way debrief the actual counted test for the reasons noted earlier. Also, parents cannot check their own child's test to check for mistakes on/in the test. It is rigged so there are no checks and balances after the test is produced and printed. Even after problems were found and errors made at least one year in the most famous state test, the New York Regents exam. It was a very bad year for New York students!!!!!
 
The practice tests can be purely selected questions (in the proper ratio to match tests as they are given) from the older tests or they can be made up new but hopefully related to the structure and nature and difficulty of those that will be on the real test. That does not in any way mean that it is how it is done, but it is how we were told it was done.

Just in case, teachers/the schools cannot in any way debrief the actual counted test for the reasons noted earlier. Also, parents cannot check their own child's test to check for mistakes on/in the test. It is rigged so there are no checks and balances after the test is produced and printed. Even after problems were found and errors made at least one year in the most famous state test, the New York Regents exam. It was a very bad year for New York students!!!!!

New York seems plagued with problems.

Now, this matter of using scores to judge teachers deserves far more scrutiny than we give it.

With both No Child Left Behind and then Race to the Top (Common Core) under Obama, it isn't average scores or aggregate scores - it was the scores of the stupid kids that mattered.

So that's who you work with. To get as many over this target score as you can. The A, B, and C students can already make the cut-off. So you teach to the bottom.

If you awarded salary and benefits to the single highest score, teachers would work with their geniuses. If it was for the highest aggregate score, the teacher would allocate each minute to where it got the highest educational return.

So it is a lot more than just "scores matter". It's which scores matter and how they matter that drives the allocation of resources.
 
In school districts, those tests are very high stakes. My kids went to public school here in South Texas and, indeed, there were at least a couple of weeks set aside for preparing to take the state test. Those weeks were spent taking practice tests and having pep-rallies, mostly. My sister-in-law is an elementary school principal and this week is the week for testing. She's been under a lot of stress because she's a first-year principal and most of her job evaluation is based on how well her students improve from one year to the next. In December, the kids took a preliminary test. Based on those results, the teachers focused their lessons for the second semester on the areas the kids had trouble. For the last three weeks, they have been doing practice tests, individual tutoring and lots of pep rallies. Every day for the last week, there was a pep rally capped off by a big all-day party (field day, motivational speakers, pizza, dancing, etc) on Friday to let the kids blow off steam.

It's a circus, in my experience and I don't know that we are actually doing the kids any good with this crazy focus on the test.

Well given that to many Texans schools exist only for Football........
 
Well given that to many Texans schools exist only for Football........

This is a nation-wide problem, and it isn't just football.

It is striking how competitive our culture is about trivial sports - football, basketball, baseball, etc. It's pretty relentless with obsessing over your conference and state rankings. The football homecoming has this whole social whirlwind rotating about it. I was amazed to see it visiting the lower '48.

I guess it didn't bother me much being a state champion in the sport I was expected to do in my local culture. It's just that now I am not under that cultural indoctrination and have reservations about it with my own kids.

You don't see that kind of obsessing over your standings academically, like on these test scores. You see puff pieces on the science fair or whatever. But districts don't generally even publish their scores. Instead, all the ones I have looked at first take the scores and decide a cut-off score for "proficient". All you get to see is the proportion of kids that are "proficient".

Since different states or districts have different definitions of "proficient", it is impossible to get an accurate impression of how your school is doing competitively. As long as you get the stupid kids over the cut-off, that is all that matters.

I suggest we do football that way from now on.

You can then think about what a football practice looks like when you are graded on how the worst kids do, not your varsity squad. That's how we are approaching education. That's how we are using these test scores, so we're running our "practices" accordingly.
 
There's a lot more than a standardized test near end of the school year. There's also a pre-test and post-test for each subject, each quarter. There is "benchmark testing" not for the child's benefit but for the school to asses its effectiveness. These are essentially 3-4 test at basically the same level to measure improvement or lack thereof across the board. Pre-tests, post-tests and benchmark tests sometimes take 2 days each to complete. Teachers do not see the test, except incidentally if the kids are taking them at desktops visible to teachers and/or proctors.

I had one set of Algebra 1 kids who accidentally took the Algebra 2 test. They then all had to stay after school, and about 20 pizzas were ordered with the comment, "As soon as you're done you can have pizza!" A mountain of pizza, smelling delicious, and kids hungry, on a beautiful spring afternoon. Plus I noticed from the desktops that the first question was a geometry problem. Maybe they should have already known that stuff but starting a test with a question they didn't review on material they haven't been exposed to lately is just wrong. I wish there weren't so much testing. But ultimately kids do have to learn how to take tests. This epic testing schedule could be about cut in half, IMO.
 
That's interesting. There is a theory about education being more efficient, viewing it with a factory approach like this. All the little unity widgets being produced on the assembly line.

We test every day, really - especially math. You know where your kid is in every subject at all times. So there's no benchmarking, before/after tests etc.

Plus we do school every day all year so there's no "semesters", no schedule, not even a set time other than they have to read a book when they first get up. That might be anywhere from eight to noon and they are rarely up at the same time.
 
Finland doesn't test kids at all the first six years. They start at age 7, with the parents already having taught them to read.

There is one mandatory test at age 16.
 
As a parent, husband to a teacher, and friend to a LOT of teachers the thing that strikes me is how absolutely miserable these tests make everyone.

The teachers hate that the whole year is built around a stupid standardized test, preventing them from actually doing their best to teach kids in a way that works and is fun.

The kids are super stressed - these tests are SO important to the school that they make it sound like not doing well enough will doom the kids to a life of misery and it's giving these kids ulcers.

The school administrators hate that their funding is based on the tests, and hate that the teachers are all cranky.

And this system that makes everyone involved miserable doesn't even work! Study after study after study has shown that this is a rotten way to actually provide a good education for kids.

I get that they want some sort of metrics they can look at and compare. I totally understand. I don't really know what the answer is to that. But the current system is garbage. My son was so stressed out we finally gave up and pulled him out of school entirely and started home schooling. I have a lot of reservations about home schooling, but this kid has been learning more under a very relaxed schedule with an informal curriculum than he ever did in traditional school, and a HUGE part of that is that he's not stressing out about the tests.
 
As a parent, husband to a teacher, and friend to a LOT of teachers the thing that strikes me is how absolutely miserable these tests make everyone.

The teachers hate that the whole year is built around a stupid standardized test, preventing them from actually doing their best to teach kids in a way that works and is fun.

The kids are super stressed - these tests are SO important to the school that they make it sound like not doing well enough will doom the kids to a life of misery and it's giving these kids ulcers.

The school administrators hate that their funding is based on the tests, and hate that the teachers are all cranky.

And this system that makes everyone involved miserable doesn't even work! Study after study after study has shown that this is a rotten way to actually provide a good education for kids.

I get that they want some sort of metrics they can look at and compare. I totally understand. I don't really know what the answer is to that. But the current system is garbage. My son was so stressed out we finally gave up and pulled him out of school entirely and started home schooling. I have a lot of reservations about home schooling, but this kid has been learning more under a very relaxed schedule with an informal curriculum than he ever did in traditional school, and a HUGE part of that is that he's not stressing out about the tests.

Thank you for your insight. We're baffled what they're doing all day in the public schools. How can they be so far behind us?

There is also an "opt-out" or test boycot movement, plenty of literature on that like here:

http://www.fairtest.org/get-involved/opting-out

Our local district has taken an ugly turn with that. They've implemented fines of $200 a day for absences not approved by the district.

Nobody disagrees with standardized tests, but the average student is taking 112 of them by graduation.
 
New York seems plagued with problems.

Now, this matter of using scores to judge teachers deserves far more scrutiny than we give it.

With both No Child Left Behind and then Race to the Top (Common Core) under Obama, it isn't average scores or aggregate scores - it was the scores of the stupid kids that mattered.

So that's who you work with. To get as many over this target score as you can. The A, B, and C students can already make the cut-off. So you teach to the bottom.

If you awarded salary and benefits to the single highest score, teachers would work with their geniuses. If it was for the highest aggregate score, the teacher would allocate each minute to where it got the highest educational return.

So it is a lot more than just "scores matter". It's which scores matter and how they matter that drives the allocation of resources.

And, that actually makes the most sense. In a perfect world where schools have all the resources they really ought to have, every single student would be given individualized support and assisted to improve without regard to their ability relative to standardized testing. However, in the real world, resources are finite. Obviously students who do exceptionally well on the standardized tests, whether as a result of personal effort or natural aptitude, are learning the necessary skills via baseline classwork well enough. The students scoring lowest are quite obviously the students that most need the extremely limited amount of extra attention and help that the school is able to provide; I don't see what is disputable or controversial about that fact.
 
In a perfect world where schools have all the resources they really ought to have, every single student would be given individualized support and assisted to improve without regard to their ability relative to standardized testing.

Maybe we could just dispense with straw men nobody believes in.

However, in the real world, resources are finite.

Thank you for joining the real word with the rest of us.


Obviously students who do exceptionally well on the standardized tests, whether as a result of personal effort or natural aptitude, are learning the necessary skills via baseline classwork well enough. The students scoring lowest are quite obviously the students that most need the extremely limited amount of extra attention and help that the school is able to provide; I don't see what is disputable or controversial about that fact.

This is so terribly vague, but yes, it contains the non real-world fantasy version of "egalitarian" educational theory. All you have to do is put a little more time into kids with the lowest scores. Magic!

There's so many assumptions lurking in this world view, it's hard to list them all. But it presumes the lowest score children have done nothing to cause their scores like not attend class, not do homework, smoke dope, or what have you. That's why all you've got to do is spend a little more time with them. Just as eager, just as hard-working.

There are schools with chronic drop-out rates on the order of 50%. How the teacher directs his time to persons who refuse even showing up to class - that's a little "real world" problem this naive view doesn't address.

The terms "no child left behind" or "every student succeeds" - sheesh. Talk about fantasy world. The idiots and morons, the drunks and druggies, the gang-bangers and criminals - all are "poofed" out of existence with such ridiculous rhetoric.

About 13% of students are considered special education. They are consuming four times the spending per person.

And what is the result? What are the proficiency scores of the special ed students? It's zero! This is a tautology. It is the bottom 13%.

One of the hidden assumptions behind this terribly naive view of the world is that IQ doesn't matter. All you have to do is spend more time with them and... magic! They are just like everyone else.

It is precisely because resources are limited that you need to consider whether spending four times as much for zero output is sensible.

I think our "egalitarian" beliefs are actually lazy and self-serving. If we actually cared about the special ed kids then we wouldn't be giving them fake high school attendance diplomas and warehousing them with babysitters in the schools. Pretending that all that expenditure is so that they will be employment ready! Are they? According to our own government, even the regular students are lacking!

A lot of them could be journeyman welders, plumbers, concrete workers, etc. by age 16. So this vague terminology about "necessary skills" is another way of evading clear thought about education. What is "necessary" on a standardized test can be not only unattainable but completely useless for millions of students.
 
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