# Twenty percent of New York students opt out of high stakes testing **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 17, 2015, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twenty-percent-of-new-york-students-opt-out-of-high-stakes-testing/728047 "2015-08-17T04:32:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twenty-percent-of-new-york-students-opt-out-of-high-stakes-testing/728047/101 "2015-08-24T10:38:48Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > I don’t know if that’s happening in districts desperate to raise scores but all of those things are viable test taking strategies that could be taught and would be considered ‘teaching to the test’. My guess would be while there may be hints of it only as it relates more specifically to test taking, but overall I’d guess that how to apply those strategies to real life situations is not being taught. I don’t know what to do about that. Game theory should definitely be taught at all levels which would apply directly to test taking. FWIW I teach some game theory every year. Some of my favorite teaching moments :). > [@](#): > > But again, at least learning to take the tests, doing well on them - that’s a baseline. After students are able to do that, the branching out, the focus on other subjects that aren’t as testable, then those things happen. I think this is where we disagree. The baseline should not consist solely of easily-tested subjects. The baseline must also include writing, science, and social studies. Too often it doesn’t. > [@](#): > > And that’s data! Of course, like people’s sentiment towards local congress folks, it shows that folks in general are not very good at evaluating schools - if the majority rate their school highly but less than 25% think that other schools deserve such praise. Maybe they should pay more attention to standardized test scores 🙂 Or that they’re paying too much attention to test scores. When evaluating your own school, you can think about your direct experiences there, and make a well-rounded judgment. When evaluating other schools, you have nothing but some misleading numbers to go by. > [@](#): > > Speaking to that survey you linked - I think it’s also an interesting topic to talk about school funding. From what I’ve read on a limited basis, again using CA as an example, there has been no meaningful impact on raising per pupil spending. Some of that is because the spending isn’t happening in the classroom, others is because the funding is so lopsided, and even still the criteria to measure is of course, standardized test results. I’m just not sure increasing school funding is the panacea that the NEA and many in the education community make it out to be. As you might guess, I have some pretty strong thoughts on that, but there’s probably already enough to talk about in this thread :). ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2015, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twenty-percent-of-new-york-students-opt-out-of-high-stakes-testing/728047/102 "2015-08-24T12:23:41Z")
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness] The problem creeps in when the data is used to put pressure on any level of the hierarchy to improve scores on standarized tests, and where this is the only or primary measure of a school’s or district’s success. When such pressure occurs, there are proven methods that can be used to increase test scores at the expense of a useful education (e.g., drilling students in test-taking strategies, eliminating art and music and science and social studies, making all other assessments of students mimic standardized tests in order to familiarize them with the format, etc.). [/QUOTE] Is there any objective way we can measure if a student’s education is useful? IOW how do you demonstrate that “teaching to the test” (if that is what you meant) causes performance to go down in other areas? I think it is important that it be an objective form of measurement, for obvious reasons. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twenty-percent-of-new-york-students-opt-out-of-high-stakes-testing/728047.md?page=5)