High-stakes testing: pros, cons and future of

[AlaskaBushPilot]

Sending the brightest kids through A-levels and university a couple of years early doesn't really help anyone.

I see this leveled at our family members, you are doing it right now, and is false on the face of it. Simply put: education doesn't help anyone. With the deceptive qualifier that you just can't learn it until his highness here gives you permission to learn it.

His highness declares you are not to learn this, because it is not to your benefit. Come back in three years. What hubris. Just go ahead and give up years of electrical engineering employment early, as my nephew just pocketed from graduating so early.

Oh, but his highness says that can't happen. Because he uttered the words. Nobody benefits. He wasn't employable - because engineers want low GPA in easy programs, not a 4.0 in EE.

In this fantasy world, you pretend too I guess that there is a finite amount of learning anyone can do, and if you learn it all early then it just "goes to waste" or something. It's ludicrous.

Modern day Luddite. Stop the learning! lol. Learning doesn't have to be justified to ANYONE.

And what if they do get out early? They aren't very employable. Highschool education combined with interesting insurence issues does not an actractive employee make.

My God how fantastical can you get? You just stated there is no employment benefit to a high school diploma!

By all means - show us the data on that. lol.


Truth is, we understand this attitude. We learned about it by reading the peer review literature on early learning. People can actually react with shock and horror that a kid is raised differently - walking much earlier, tending fields or factory work, or in this case learning early.

People are going to make knee-jerk, illogical reactions to it. Attack it. Like saying a high school diploma won't help you get a job.

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

Also, NOT("attendance at school" = "education).

Nine out of the top 25 worst schools in the country had zero percent proficiency in math. ZERO! Not one student.

I don't like mixing the individual schools into districts, which can hide the real horrific ones by blending them with some that are better. But by district, I remembered something about Detroit setting a national record for the lowest math scores ever recorded.

Google came up with this, which was not the article I had read at the time, but has the quote I was actually putting into Google:

http://www.deweyfromdetroit.com/2009/12/detroit-schools-where-we-eat-our-young.html#.VBc7vcJ0y70

Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council on Great City Schools, said “There is no jurisdiction of any kind, at any level, at any time in the 30-year history of NAEP that has ever registered such low numbers,” But that’s not even the bad news; he continued, "These numbers are only slightly better than what one would expect by chance as if the kids had never gone to school and simply guessed at the answers.”

$13K a year per kid at the time, and although too incredible to believe, it is not an overstatement at all that a chimpanzee picking answers is going to outperform nearly half the Detroit kids that have been going to school for many years on this test.

I am coming around to your view on compulsory education, Malcolm. As a core problem. The kids should be able to test out. That's why an exit test is so wrong, in terms of forcing attendance for 13 years first.

In the face of this record low near-chimpanzee level math performance though, at least 87% of the kids know someone who has been shot or murdered.

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2014/08/87_percent_of_detroit_public_s.html

An exit test isn't going to do what a TEST will do, meaning that the kids get a diploma whenever they can pass the test... it will let them escape this violent hell hole, and the sooner the better. Why lock them in this violent prison first, and after they have been beaten down or killed, let them take the test post humously. So long as they are 18. It's okay, because it won't affect the average score much to include the scores of dead people.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Nine out of the top 25 worst schools in the country had zero percent proficiency in math. ZERO! Not one student.

I don't like mixing the individual schools into districts, which can hide the real horrific ones by blending them with some that are better.

Mary Ann Raywid, a professor of Education Administration, recommended a policy change that would mandate independent school districts for each school (in Hawaii, I suppose, that might mean each high school complex). There's no point from the teachers' point of view or the taxpayers' point of view, to a policy that gives to one bargaining agent a State-wide monopoly in the provision of representation services. That's like telling all teachers that they have to buy their groceries from Safeway. Good for Safeway, bad for teachers. One contract does not fit all.

... The kids should be able to test out. That's why an exit test is so wrong, in terms of forcing attendance for 13 years first.

I like the idea of test out at any age. At the other extreme ... someone told me (I don't know if it's true, so don't quote me), that in Japan, no matter how minor the offense, if you get sentenced to prison, you don't get out until you can read.

An exit test isn't going to do what a TEST will do, meaning that the kids get a diploma whenever they can pass the test... it will let them escape this violent hell hole, and the sooner the better. Why lock them in this violent prison first, and after they have been beaten down or killed, let them take the test post humously. So long as they are 18. It's okay, because it won't affect the average score much to include the scores of dead people.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

 

[Minoosh]

What is this supposed to mean?

First:

We thought hey - why not have him take the GED at 10 or something, he is certainly on that kind of path. But you can't. You have to be 18.

A poster corrected you. Then:

Okay, yah - I looked it up for us. The GED. But it turns out that there are a number of colleges, top ones especially, that will be glad to put you in a PhD program at age 16 or whatever. You don't need a GED.

Followed by your response to me:

I looked it up before posting about it. For my son, my state. I was telling him that, not thanking him for suggesting I look.

You complained about a law. Someone said it was different in his state. Then you looked it up. Yay! What I'm pointing out is that you were complaining about a law/regulation that doesn't even exist. Looking it up apparently taught you something.

You can't grasp the political problem at the root of American Public Education.

Your post has several "you" statements, most of which seem to be literary and have nothing to do with me, personally.

But I'll claim this one. It's irrelevant whether I "can grasp the political problem." I have mixed feelings about exit exams and I was looking to engage on that topic, not an argument about public education in general. You say exit exams have no bearing on "real testing," so I take it to means you are against them?

The rest of your post has nothing do with what I asked.

 

[Minoosh]

I'm sorry. I probably misread your post. I thought you said yay, as in great, it was 16 in your state as well. But you said yah. I apologize.

I don't think I match the image you might have of me. When you claim to know what I think, I'm baffled how you get some conclusions. Like the one where you say my problem is I don't understand how flawed the system is. Frankly I think you read more into my statements than is there.

Fortunately my question was addressed in the science and math forum. In education things become polarized almost instantly.

 

[Minoosh]

, I like the idea of legislation that would require government schools to make exit exams available. It is fraud for a government agency to charge taxpayers for the instruction of a student who does not need tax-funded instruction. Worse, compulsion degrades motivation.In some States I expect the age at which government schools will recognize the GED would be a matter of State-level DOE policy and not legislation. This complicates your search.

I'm not against credit by exam. Credit recovery is becoming more common. I think students need to complete assignments - not go straight to the test - but that's an educated guess. The standardized test is as much to hold schools accountable as students.

I started taking college classes at 14 and got to double dip - HS and college credit. I'm surprised Alaska puts the GED age at 18. I don't remember any difficulty enrolling at community college.

 

[fuelair]

Please elaborate. What is a "sink state"? In what jurisdictions do government schools outperform independent or parochial schools? That's a bit over-broad.
Here's Wikipedia:...Furthermore:
".

Sink estate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sink_estate

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Sink estate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sink_estate

Thanks.
Is there any evidence that government schools outperform parochial or independent schools with children of poor parents? Some studies indicate otherwise.
I recommend James Tooley, The Beautiful Tree.

 

[fuelair]

I would suspect that there is insufficient data to verify either/any way as testing and other determinations of actual learning would have to be the same across all schools and, unless I have missed something they are not. Also student data would have to be analyzed for the same purpose.

I.e.: if I wanted to prove that private schools/religious schools did better I would have a nice quiet program to find the most intelligent of the students from low income areas and have a good sprinkling of them scholarshipped in. That would - if done very well - make the private/religious schools look much better than the public schools.

The biggest problem that public schools have is that they are public and that they are not allowed to get rid of highly disruptive students. All of the private schools can and do. It does affect things.

 

[Minoosh]

The biggest problem that public schools have is that they are public and that they are not allowed to get rid of highly disruptive students. All of the private schools can and do. It does affect things.

And yet, some of the most disruptive students are also the brightest.

Teachers IMO tend to be idealists; we want to be there for whoever shows up ... whatever their behavioral "challenges" are ... and even if they come from homes where education is a very low priority. In fact those can be the students I'm most drawn to. In a system where parents have more choices there will remain families who rely on the default traditional public school. Those kids also deserve the best we can give.

But the workload is back-breaking. For me, pretty much unsustainable - I burn out, because I do not know when my job ends. I do better as an aide, tutor or other hourly employee.

I still haven't been able to figure out whether states are required to have something like an exit exam.

 

[fuelair]

I only know Florida but technically we do as our current version is standardized (in theory). FCAT sucked in that area and I suspect the new ones do also, plus they are computer provided and the system has messed up multiple times during it's first years here (started in 2011/12 ) - it is now tests that must be passed to pass certain classes which you must have passed to graduate. Yes, that means what you fear - No matter how well the student does during the year they must pass the test or they fail the class.

 

[fuelair]

And yet, some of the most disruptive students are also the brightest.

Teachers IMO tend to be idealists; we want to be there for whoever shows up ... whatever their behavioral "challenges" are ... and even if they come from homes where education is a very low priority. In fact those can be the students I'm most drawn to. In a system where parents have more choices there will remain families who rely on the default traditional public school. Those kids also deserve the best we can give.

But the workload is back-breaking. For me, pretty much unsustainable - I burn out, because I do not know when my job ends. I do better as an aide, tutor or other hourly employee.

I still haven't been able to figure out whether states are required to have something like an exit exam.

I like the attitude, but, when that disruption prevents others from learning in the test environment we have, I would rather have one disruptive student fail than 5 or more who are affected by the form of the disruption fail and I have liked many of my students like that, but they were aware of the limits ("Your right to swing your arm ends before it gets close enough to my nose that I will have to break it." was how I explained it for the ones bright enough to follow it.)

 

[Minoosh]

... I have liked many of my students like that, but they were aware of the limits ("Your right to swing your arm ends before it gets close enough to my nose that I will have to break it." was how I explained it for the ones bright enough to follow it.)

Didi that work?

I manage to project that aura at times, but I'm not really sure how I do it. You have to "mean business" and somehow something I do tells students I "mean business."

My problem is tolerating a behavior to avoid calling attention to it, then realizing I've let it go too far. Just a simple thing like one kid out of his/her seat to sharpen a pencil, then realizing that the line at the pencil sharpener has turned into a clump. This is as a substitute - otherwise I would know the policy on pencil-sharpening.

If I say "silent hands please," then call on one student to tell me the usual pencil-sharpening procedure, other students will immediately start arguing with the one I called on.

Leveraging children's natural inclination to argue would probably be quite educational, but in theory I'm following a lesson plan.

 

[geni]

I see this leveled at our family members, you are doing it right now, and is false on the face of it. Simply put: education doesn't help anyone. With the deceptive qualifier that you just can't learn it until his highness here gives you permission to learn it.

Despite the best efforts of some universities are still still a social enviroment as well as a learning eviroment. Its the social side that creates the problems.

His highness declares you are not to learn this, because it is not to your benefit. Come back in three years. What hubris. Just go ahead and give up years of electrical engineering employment early, as my nephew just pocketed from graduating so early.

graduating from what?

Oh, but his highness says that can't happen.

It can happen (gorden brown who you may have herd of went through uni early). However the social effects are kinda dicey.

Because he uttered the words. Nobody benefits. He wasn't employable - because engineers want low GPA in easy programs, not a 4.0 in EE.

Err Electrical Engineering is a 3/4 year degree/masters course. So if you managed it 3 years early you would be 18/19 which is beyond the insurence issue.

In this fantasy world, you pretend too I guess that there is a finite amount of learning anyone can do, and if you learn it all early then it just "goes to waste" or something. It's ludicrous.

Modern day Luddite. Stop the learning! lol. Learning doesn't have to be justified to ANYONE.

Well no but if it want a job you may have to explain a few things

My God how fantastical can you get? You just stated there is no employment benefit to a high school diploma!

Your problem is not qualifications. Your problem is that insurance companies don't like people under 16 in dangerious areas and 16-18 year olds present simular problems although to a lesser extent.

By all means - show us the data on that. lol.

The numbers on NEETS are availible.

Truth is, we understand this attitude. We learned about it by reading the peer review literature on early learning. People can actually react with shock and horror that a kid is raised differently - walking much earlier, tending fields or factory work, or in this case learning early.

I live in the 21st century. Farming in the UK is less than 1% of jobs. Industry is slightly better but industry isn't short of GCSE level employees. Why would they complicate matters by employing someone under the age of 16?