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Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
I didn't say no testing, and I certainly didn't say that the tests should be thrown out. I said this is why I have a problem with the current model of testing.

I got that. I was just taking another swipe at the CTA.

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan I understand that. I also understand that there is a cumulative effect and that teachers are going to end up with kids who don't have a basic grasp of the previous fundamentals. There may not be a single person responsible for a kid's being behind in math or reading. It may be a slew of people, including previous teachers,

That is why I believe annualized tests are so important. That way teachers will only be held resposible for what happens to the kids on their watch. Teachers are not held responsible of the kid screws up the test, they are only held responsible if the kid screws up the test even more this year than they did last year.

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan a change in the way kids are evaluated (look at the second article that I sent you, where they say that they can't compare to previous reading scores because the evaluation criteria changed), parental involvment, and yes, the teacher who has that kid this year.

If you change the criteria then you can't compare those tests to tests gleaned from using a different critieria. The only data that will be useful (and therefore data used in evaluations) is date used from tests using the same critiers. As far as parental involvement is concerned, you can't really control that. All you can do is control the quality of education they get. so the parental involement will probably stay constant from year to year, the only thing that will change is the influence of the teacher. If a teacher can get a parent to get involved in a students life in a certain year, that will get reflected in the year end exam. And that is another quality you want in a teacher; getting the paretns involved. it doesn't matter how they do it, you just want the teachers to help the students learn.

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan Did you ever work hard on standardize tests aside from making sure you brought a number two pencil to school with you when you were in elementary school? I sure as hell didn't. (I also scored in the 99th percentile on most of those tests and considered them a joke. I presume the same for most other people on this board. My school gave the Stanford Achievement Tests.) But I worked my ass off on the SATs and the APs. The former to get in college, the latter because it was tied to my grade. My parents were also much, much more interested in my performance on the latter exams than the ones that were meaningless except for evaluating the school. They were also much more interested in how I did on my spelling test that week than they were in how I did on the standardized test.

But just because you didn't try as hard, doesn't mean you didn't do better on these exams the more you learned. It is not like you tried to screw them up. And like I said, there would be no harm in trying to incentivize students into doing well on the exam.

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan Yes, but evaluating the student and evaluating the teacher are two different things. Using a tool to evaluate the student is perfectly fine and acceptable, but it may not be the best tool (as demonstrated with the Algebra/Geometry issue) for evaluating the particular teacher who has the student at that point in time. Again, I'm not at all saying that testing needs to be done away with, but we need to be clear on who we are testing. The student or the teacher?

Both. Why can't you test both? You have to test the teacher. And what is wrong with testing the teacher? How else do you find out which teachers are doing a good job and which teachers are not? How does the individual teacher know if what they are doing is working? And don't you want to reward the teachers that are doing a good job, and let the teachers know that are not doing such a good job that they should do better?

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Again, I have a difficulty with the above given the conclusions drawn in the second article I posted. Kids grades seem to be doing fine grade wise, but they're not doing well on these exams. I would want to know a little more about what the reasons are behind that before I start throwing the kids back a year or firing teachers. Are they really not learning or are they not performing well on these exams?

Don't you think life is one big exam? In the real word, they are not going to get extra points for class participation, or trying hard, or being nice to the teacher. Either they can read and write, do basic math, or they won't be able to hold the job. Isn't this what the exams directly test? It seems to me the exams are much more objective than grades.

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan And again, I'm not saying do not test. I am saying that incentives need to be aligned so KIDS find these tests to be as important as everyone else in the equation.

I agree with that.