Posting Towards Gomorrah

[bilmore]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Instead, significant amount of time is being spent teaching test taking strategies, like when it is best to guess.

Do you think this actually happens? It sounds like it would be simpler to teach what 7 X 9 is. We're not speaking here of high-level stuff - most of the "teaching to the test" concerns I've heard of have been expressed in terms of grade-school and junior high kids, and the Stanley Kaplan approach strikes me as being harder to teach to the kids than the subjects.

(In neither our fairly good suburban district, nor in the gasping Minneapolis system, have I heard this description of the problem, or maybe I did but didn't get what they were saying.)

(ETA - and, if this IS happening, wouldn't it be a fairly strong indictment of the teachers who were choosing to do this, and an indication that they needed more supervision? I'm guessing that they were hired to teach specific subjects, not Kaplan skills.)

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by bilmore
Or, if the lesson to be learned is, what was the history of the American colonies, and the test then asks about details of the colonies as a sampling method to see if the students learned what they were supposed to learn, where's the harm? Can you give me an example like this that illustrates what you mean?

I ignored the second aspect, but history is an area where teaching to the test really hems in a lot of the point of the class. History is partially about learning facts, but it's also about learning how to find facts (research) and think critically about those facts. If I'm a history teacher charged with getting my students to pass a test on history that will impact not just there own ability to graduate but also my schools funding, the two week long research project where each student researches a different figure from the American revolution and writes an essay on their contributions is gone, and I'm replacing it with drills on dates of battles.

You may be okay with that. But the essay assignment is not exactly radical pedagogy.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by baltassoc
I ignored the second aspect, but history is an area where teaching to the test really hems in a lot of the point of the class. History is partially about learning facts, but it's also about learning how to find facts (research) and think critically about those facts. If I'm a history teacher charged with getting my students to pass a test on history that will impact not just there own ability to graduate but also my schools funding, the two week long research project where each student researches a different figure from the American revolution and writes an essay on their contributions is gone, and I'm replacing it with drills on dates of battles.

You may be okay with that. But the essay assignment is not exactly radical pedagogy.

I'm not okay with that, obviously. But, why is this an either/or solution set for you? When I was a kid, we certainly learned all those timelines - it was, like the foundational work - and we also did the research and writing. Have our expectations dropped so low that it's now normal to think that we cannot expect that level of work? This is a primary reason, in my mind, why we're so far below many other countries' ed systems - our lack of expectations.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
Is Pelosi actually to the left of her constituency, dead on with them, or to their right?

It's hard to say, since there is no remote threat to her re-election, so it's easy to get the impression that San Francisco isn't actually represented in Congress.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by bilmore
Do you think this actually happens?

(ETA - and, if this IS happening, wouldn't it be a fairly strong indictment of the teachers who were choosing to do this, and an indication that they needed more supervision? I'm guessing that they were hired to teach specific subjects, not Kaplan skills.)

I can't speak for Minneapolis, but I went to school in one of the first areas in the country to require passing a standardized test for graduation for high school, and which administered related tests at several other grade levels (although at the younger age there were no negative implications for failure for either the student or the school at that time). Already, then, there was a significant amount of time spent on strategy, especially in the classes attended by the students most likely to be marginal. Even my calculus teacher spent two days on test strategies.

It is possible that as the results of exams have become more critical for both the students and the schools that the pressure to teach in such a way has magically disappeared, but I am sceptical.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
(ETA - and, if this IS happening, wouldn't it be a fairly strong indictment of the teachers who were choosing to do this, and an indication that they needed more supervision? I'm guessing that they were hired to teach specific subjects, not Kaplan skills.)

I would think that it's more of an indictment of the administration than the specific teachers. But balt's point about this being a rational response to the incentives provided stands.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
It's hard to say, since there is no remote threat to her re-election, so it's easy to get the impression that San Francisco isn't actually represented in Congress.

Can I take that to mean that, at the least, she's not in-line with her constituents' views, direction aside?

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by bilmore
I'm not okay with that, obviously. But, why is this an either/or solution set for you? When I was a kid, we certainly learned all those timelines - it was, like the foundational work - and we also did the research and writing. Have our expectations dropped so low that it's now normal to think that we cannot expect that level of work? This is a primary reason, in my mind, why we're so far below many other countries' ed systems - our lack of expectations.

Because it is an either/or. The difference between one kid in a class passing can be the difference in thousands of dollars of funding for the school. I have no incentive to maximize the learning of the class as a whole (beyond my own pedagogical ethics); I have every incentive to target all my efforts to making sure that the one or two or three marginal students pass instead of fail (as a consequence, I also have little incentive to educate the ones I've written off completely at all).

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
Can I take that to mean that, at the least, she's not in-line with her constituents' views, direction aside?

No -- I'm trying to suggest that it's hard to tell what her views are.

Since her congressional district also has two senators, it's not like San Francisco seems to suffer from having her spend all her time attending to the problems of the national party (e.g., fundraising for other candidates).

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Instead, significant amount of time is being spent teaching test taking strategies, like when it is best to guess.

I have heard this from a Republican friend of mine who voted for Bush (at least in 2000) who has a very gifted child in a good Northern Va. public school system. She gets very upset by what she sees as the impact of NCLB on that system and her daughter's education.

i.e. Enforcing and/or leading to mediocrity, while not helping the smart kids at all. I helpfully pointed out to her that her child was not being "left behind", because she didn't need help, and that mediocrity was a step up for many kids. That didn't comfort her much. But I'm not sure how one would/could target a program more appropriately.

S_A_M

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by baltassoc
If that were what was being taught, there would be no harm.

Instead, significant amount of time is being spent teaching test taking strategies, like when it is best to guess.

See, e.g. http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/b...section1.rhtml

This example is for the SAT, but there are strategies that are at least as complicated for any standardized test - SAT prep just happens to be big private business and therefore lots of information is online. And there are many, many more strategies that are much more complicated.

I don't have a problem with my kids learning that 7 x 9 = 63. I have a problem with my kids spending weeks learning instead that if they can eliminate two of the answers, they should guess. And that when they guess in those circumstances, they should pick the answer that looks less correct. (Both of these are effective strategies for any multiple choice test designed by professional test makers - up to and including the bar exam).

I know this is not the intended consequence of testing. It is a consequence nonetheless.

Testing is a necessary evil, but one has to recognize that were important consequences are at stake (individually, the right to advance; school-level, access to funding), all strategies will be deployed, not just the intended ones.

I'm sure this happens, but isn't eliminating wrong answers, when you are not sure what the right one is, a valuable skill?

(For example: In Iraq, the U.S. should (a) cut and run, (b) stay the course, (c) other).

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by baltassoc
I ignored the second aspect, but history is an area where teaching to the test really hems in a lot of the point of the class. History is partially about learning facts, but it's also about learning how to find facts (research) and think critically about those facts. If I'm a history teacher charged with getting my students to pass a test on history that will impact not just there own ability to graduate but also my schools funding, the two week long research project where each student researches a different figure from the American revolution and writes an essay on their contributions is gone, and I'm replacing it with drills on dates of battles.

You may be okay with that. But the essay assignment is not exactly radical pedagogy.

This is, I think, the crux of it. It is about priorities. Education requires some degree of rote learning - if you don't know that the French Revolution occured after the American Revolution, and that the Civil War was four score and seven years after indepdence, you're going to have trouble with history. BUT, if you are focused on learning the aspects of all the disciplines that can be tested THROUGH MULITPLE CHOICE or other objective grading criteria, you are going to leave out the part of education that focuses on weaving the things you know together with an analysis of why they are important. Got to do both well.

I see an enormous amount of teaching to the test - right down to having two full weaks dedicated to drilling before a test and focusing the curriculum on the items on the test.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by bilmore
This is a primary reason, in my mind, why we're so far below many other countries' ed systems - our lack of expectations.

In what way do you think we are so far below other countries' ed systems? My understanding is that we produce more high school and college grads per capita that just about anywhere else, and we are clearly the place many go for world class education, research and development?

(Insert usual mocking about hating American here).

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
I'm sure this happens, but isn't eliminating wrong answers, when you are not sure what the right one is, a valuable skill?

(For example: In Iraq, the U.S. should (a) cut and run, (b) stay the course, (c) other).

Okay, fair enough. How about this (SAT) rule: there are never more than three same answers in a row (i.e., if you have four "C"s in a row, at least one of them is wrong).

The above rule is a great example of how one can use the unintended consequence of a rule set up for other purposes to ones advantage, and closely resembles the method used by cryptographers to crack codes (like the Enigma code in WWII), but I'm not sure that's on the curriculum at most schools. Maybe it should be.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by bilmore
I have my response to that set of posts all nicely drafted up, setting out the treason statute, and naming names and, no doubt, seriously insulting things that you hold dear. I decided to sit on it, as the subject appears to unhinge some here, but if you'd rather, we can have that conversation. Your call.

Might as well release it with the Foley Report.

I'm hoping the Democratic Response will be coming out from the House Judiciary Committee next spring.