Let me start of by saying standardized tests do a poor job of measuring a students ability. And the reason behind that is, the scores on tests don't give enough or useful information to be able to evaluate a students ability to success. It's time for schools to look beyond a score written on paper and pay closer attention to what these test can and cannot do. I read an article on the FRCC data base that said "If anything the intervening years-- primarily the years of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and it's strict test-driven regimen-- have made the problems in this area worse because we've asked test scores to carry ever more weight and we've depended on them to make ever more consequential decisions. Because of NCLB-- and the [Barack] Obama administration's "blueprint" places similar weight on test scores-- we now use "achievement tests" to decide wether students are entitled to tutoring services or whether they can transfer to a different school or whether we should close a school and reconstitute it's staff. And many states now have strict rules about who qualifies to receive a high school diploma primarily by the scores on a standardized test of "achievement." (Standardized Tests Do Not Effectively Measure Student Achievement) But wait, what happens to doing your homework and class work on time? what happens to having perfect attendance? what happens to paying attention in every class and participating? I guess what I'm trying to say is, whats the point of having all perfect scores on those things if schools will still judge you, your ability, success, achievement and so on, according to a standardized test score. Rochelle Gutierrez gives an appropriate understanding of achievement, "achievement-- all the outcomes that students and teachers attain. Achievement is more than a test score but also includes class participation, students' course-taking patterns, and teachers' professional development patterns." It is super dangerous for schools to depend on these tests scores because "achievement" means more than a given number on a standardized test. And the conclusions schools draw from the knowledge that is being gathered.
Furthermore as i had said about scores on tests not giving enough information to evaluate a students' ability, a psychometrician Daniel Koretz said they "usually do not provide a direct and complete measure of education achievement." Meaning that theres only a part of the goals towards education. For example things that standardized test don't even measure are, creativity, persistence, endurance, curiosity, empathy, self-awareness, self discipline, leadership, and integrity. Im sure these are things we want our children to obtain and learn, this is what i consider real and beneficial "achievements" Shouldn't schools strive for goals that involve all the things i listed, along with their traditional academic goals? And if teachers aren't able to teach this from school sources such as text books, the idea here is to model them or create their own ways of teaching these things. If schools think they have a great understanding of their students development, they don't. And that is because, they aren't coming to a conclusion about how students are growing and developing physically, emotionally and intellectually.
In the article Whats Wrong With Standardized Tests? talks about similar things as in the first article. But more questions came up that are more related towards how are standardized test scored? The way test are scored is usually by an accurately programmed machine. But are these test scores reliable? And i would think that if these scores were reliable, the second time testing, the score would be exactly the same. Which comes to the conclusion that these kinds of test are very poor on student learning. They also don't asses on what students can do on the real world task. And for teachers, are these tests helpful? The answer is not really, as it is shown on a classroom survey. The tests do not give helpful information about how the student learns or thinks in order for the teacher to understand on what to do next in working with them.
-Phillip, Harris. “Standardized Test Do Not Effectively Measure Student Achievement.”Opposing Viewpoints, ic.galegroup.com.frccwc.idm.oclc.org/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?disableHighlighting=false&displayGroupName=Viewpoints&currPage=&scanId=&query=&source=&prodId=OVIC&search_within_results=&p=OVIC&mode=view&catId=&u=west59484&limiter=&display-query=&displayGroups=&contentModules=&action=e&sortBy=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3010478218&windowstate=normal&activityType=&failOverType=&commentary=+. Accessed 9 Mar. 2017.
For Post 2
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that there are consequences to not achieving “proper” test scores. Also, if I were to add anything, it would be some statistics within your writing. I think that I would like to know if there are any alternatives to standardized tests. I also agree that these ways of testing a student overall ability and success is not completely accurate. There should be some type of way to make these tests less important than other things like talent or social skills. The post is very well written.
-Kourtney (Andie) Pokorny
I like this topic and agree with your point. I think standardized tests sometimes miss their mark completely. I like how you showed how there are a lot of things like creativity that standardized tests don't cover. You provided lots of information and insight on this topic and i learned a lot from this post. I would like to see some information on the possible upsides to standardized tests if there is any but good job so far.
ReplyDelete