LHoD actually stated this in his original post which you asked for a cite (post 64). He repeated it because it seemed like you missed it. “fucking rock[ing] international tests” is not necessarily a precise measure, and saying “plenty of room for educational growth” along side the* ‘fucking rocking’* description seems like a fair caveat to me.
Sure–but students take it in the tenth grade. That’s not a “high school exit exam,” and there’s nothing remarkable about testing tenth graders on tenth-grade material.
If Wikipedia is to be trusted, only twenty states have anything that counts as a high school exit exam. Magiver’s claim is far too broad.
Keep in mind the general strand, too. Magiver said,
This is nonsense, of course. I can speak personally to NC’s third grade reading and math tests, which require students to do things like find equivalent fractions (something I didn’t learn in school until fifth grade) and find similarities between paragraphs and analyze poetry and find the area of an irregular rectilinear polygon.
Magiver’s cite for his claim was an erroneous, broad claim about high school exit exams, and when I asked him to elaborate, he accused me of living under a rock.
His first claim, the only one with any relevance to the conversation, can be safely discarded at this point.
I’m not, of course, talking about cheating, as someone else thought. An example might help.
There will probably be around 4-5 questions on the EOG for my third graders dealing with money. They’ll look something like this (very roughly):
Now, I can prepare my students for this sort of question in several ways. Let’s look at two ways:
- I can set my kids up with a classroom economy, in which they’re regularly handling play money and making pretend financial decisions. They’ll record their purchases and sales as equations, and practice making change for one another. Every now and then, I’ll throw in a question like the above in order to familiarize them with testing format.
- I can make a hundred questions like this and regularly drill my students in this sort of question. I can teach them to recognize distractors (incorrect answers). I can teach them strategies for how long to spend on a given question before moving on to the next question. I can teach them how to use specific testing materials, e.g., graph paper, to line up their numbers in an equation, and make them practice this on a daily basis.
Which of these two methods will probably lead to a higher score on this portion of the test? Which of these two methods will probably lead to students more prepared to handle money in a real-world context? And which of these two methods would you prefer to be used by your child’s teacher?
But isn’t this logic just a thinly-veiled excuse for discrimination? Shouldn’t your decision on what school to put your child into be based on other factors, such as, for example, school’s diversity–and no standardized testing is needed to use this criteria.
Think about that statement for a moment. Just how are we comparing our students to those in other nations? All that proves is that teaching students to be good at math tests has resulted in students who are good at math tests, and yet again completely skips over the point if the test is an accurate assessment of the real skills.
Or you could have taught them basic math which in this case easily answers the question. This is math that a 3rd grader should be able to do in their head. If the students you’re teaching can’t then It explains why you think the HS test is difficult. My nephews passed the HS test in the 9th grade.
Ferchrissakes, do you have ANY basis for your opinions at all? When was the last time you talked about math with an eight year old?
This is a valid point: it’s inconsistent for me to claim these tests are poor measuring tools and then to use them to say we’re doing great at math.
Our top students are certainly doing well at math. A Nation at Risk was written 32 years ago; since then, the kids from 1980s US public schools have gone on to found the lion’s share of the world’s startup tech companies. By any measure of real-world success that you can come up with, the US is dominating the world’s STEM fields at top levels.
There are legitimate concerns about the non-top levels. I maintain that fixing wealth disparities is a necessary precursor to fixing these concerns.
That’s basically an article about Philadelphia schools.
with my Nephews. Who as I mentioned already passed the HS test in the 9th grade. They were average students. Can’t say I was impressed with their math books but they managed to stumble through it.
You posted a simple math problem based on addition/multiplication. If your students can’t figure it out but others pass the test then… what? I don’t know what you expect me to say. All the other school districts have to take the test. Where do you expect this conversation to go?
So this was five years ago you talked about math with eight year olds, is that what you’re saying? How long was this conversation? What do you know about standards?
Nothing in your personal experience appears to qualify you to participate in this conversation, and you seem unwilling to rely on cites, relying instead on not-so-vague intimations that I’m a bad teacher as a replacement for logic or knowledge. I think we’re done here. Bone, while he disagrees with me, does so from an informed and interesting perspective.
I’m not sure actually. I think students learn in different ways. The classroom economy is great and all, but if we’re learning math, recognizing question patterns, identifying the key words which indicate what is being asked, I think that’s valuable as well. Overall test strategy about scoring, the value of time, the opportunity cost of missed questions, and pacing - all of those are valuable as well and can be used to bridge into broader topics.
If it were my kid, I like the first method - as long as they can answer the questions. from the test. I’m still not very happy that they don’t seem to be teaching addition and multiplication tables anymore.
Discrimination based on what? I frankly prioritize education over diversity. If I had to choose, I would not make a single sacrifice in the educational component for the sake of diversity. Diversity (however you want to quantify it) is a nice thing to have - but it comes behind a number of things.
Sure, those can be bridged into broader topics. Do you think that’s happening in districts desperate to raise scores?
If a district is willing to integrate different studies, as you suggest, there are STILL better ways to do it than through a focus on standardized test strategies. But I’m pretty sure that districts feeling heat about their scores aren’t looking for ways to integrate topics. That’s the problem.
Incidentally, while I know polls aren’t an excuse for logical argument, this just popped up in my FB feed:
And it’s important to remember that people in general are very happy with the schools they have the most experience with. There’s definitely a propaganda movement to convince people that our educational system is worse than it really is.
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.
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 don’t think the current state of standardized testing in the country is optimal. But to me, gathering the data, establishing minimum proficiency levels (testing levels), that is an overall good thing. The application of those goals can be improved, but not by refusing to gather the data. I think there are tiers of importance when going through K-12 education. Math, reading, and writing are on the top tier and those should crowd out other topics until they are developed with proficiency.
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 
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.
That being said, I donate to my kids’ classrooms.
There is an old saying “you dont sacrifice your children on the altar of your values”. That means you dont put your kid into a crappy school just so they can experience “diversity”. Now if YOU want to - ok. Go for it and I’ve known people with a true passion for diversity who have.
Besides if your talking racial diversity, why does my kid need to sit next to a kid of another race to learn math? Yes, its nice for kids to learn about others but “diversity” doesnt lead to a better grade on the SAT or a college scholarship.
PS. The schools in my area are very diverse.
I really don’t understand your manufactured crisis. Math is math. My personal example was of 2 kids who would rather spend time playing video games than studying. Without a lot of fanfare they managed to knock out the HS test in the 9th grade. A parade for this achievement did not follow. This is what was expected of them.
You’ve provided one simple 3rd grade math problem and declared it beyond the reach of mortal children. I’m not buying it. The tests exist to establish the minimum level of acceptable achievement and are not the brass ring of higher learning.
If your school system sucks then you don’t blame the test. It’s there to establish problems that need to be corrected. Monstro posted an example of a school system in crisis. They’re either grossly mismanaged or grossly underfunded and don’t have enough money for books. That’s pretty fucked for a city of that size. But without testing nobody would know where they stand. With a grading curve system they could be handing out diplomas to students who would otherwise flunk in a good school system.
Another thing is many people dont KNOW their schools suck. They think they have diversity and community but what they also have is watered down standards which they dont realize until their graduates try to go to college and cannot handle real coursework.
So no you can NOT just go up and ask a parent. Now you CAN sometimes ask a teacher but often they are afraid of their jobs and wont be honest.
Thing is 9th grade algebra needs to just as rigorous at one school as the other but it often isnt.
This is completely untrue.