This is sort of off topic, but I wish the public education system would recognize and honor the fact that some kids are more interested in the trades than academics, and allow them to learn what interests them in middle and high school. The world certainly needs plumbers, auto mechanics, welders, HVAC repairmen, construction contractors, etc. Why can’t we have more vocational programs along with the traditional subjects, and let kids start taking them in 8th grade or so if they want to? I think this would help with retention of students who feel alienated by the traditional curriculum, and help them be gainfully employed when they graduate. Hell, find a way to start apprenticeship programs so these kids can get on the job training when they’re teens. As long as kids aren’t forced or shunted into voc/tech programs as a way of stratifying and compartmentalizing them, I think this would be a good option for a lot of kids.
I have read that multiple-choice tests are not used in other countries the way they are in the U.S.; here’s one cite I found.
That page also contains this paragraph:
That addresses writing, but similar things could be said about other subjects, like math and science. A multiple-choice test can test recall of facts and ability to follow procedures, but it can’t test whether you understand the facts and procedures or can think mathematically or scientifically. Hence, teaching to the test would be teaching students to come up with the right answer.
LOL, they are often that poorly written, but you’re right, they are rarely that straight forward. That was sort of the point. 
And they can make good money on a lot of skilled trades, too.
I wish people would stop telling kids that they must get a college degree or else they will flip burgers for the rest of their lives. And telling them that a college degree automatically means a job and financial success.
Hell, I’ve got three degrees, but I can’t get FT work as an English professor despite years of experience and a buttload of qualifications. I wish I had gone into health occupations (where I’m now headed) years ago.
Sorry for getting OT a bit.
But not what kidneys do, which is what the question was testing. My point is that a superficial knowledge of the subject goes much farther with a multiple choice test where you are kind of guided to the right answer. Almost always two of the answers are obviously false if you know the vocabulary AT ALL.
I had an advantage in my anatomy classes because I already understood how the greek/latin prefixes/suffixes worked. So I might not know what hormone is produced in the gland on top of the kidneys, if they put epinephrin as a choice, but I’d nail if if they put adrenaline.
I have the capacity to remember things partially very quickly. So while I could remember every step of the HIV cycle for the test, I could never remember which sphincter was on the stomach, if it was only one sphincter mentioned I could nail it but if they put another sphincter from another body part I might mistake it for pyloric sphincter.
So yes, I would test based on SOME knowledge of the material, but it’s not about whether or not you learn SOME of the material, it’s about whether or not you are learning it holistically.
I teach AP classes, so I’ve been “teaching to the test” for years. I’ve got no problem with it. Any teacher worth their salary can still make the material interesting, challenging, and link so many cool things to it that the students will continue to seek out knowledge on their own for the rest of their lives.
AP tests aren’t multiple choice, are they?
I disagree that in an actual test, a question like that is best construed as testing for knowledge about kidneys. Since you can pass a test having gotten less than 100% of the answers correct, what’s important isn’t what the individual questions are “testing for” but rather, what the test is testing for. The test is testing for knowledge, say, of very basic human anatomy. If someone can get through the test using elimination processes like that you illustrated, then that person has knowledge of very basic human anatomy. No problem, even if he didn’t actually know the answers to some of the questions.
Perhaps, but your illustration isn’t convincing since it portrays a test question that is, itself, so superficial. Besides, how is “those other three organs do X Y and Z” any more or less superficial than “Kidneys do W”?
I’d like to see an illustration using a more realistic set of questions.
It seems to me that the knowledge you brought to bear on the test was actually quite holistic. But that might be the problem–it might have been too holistic, since you relied so much on knowledge outside the subject matter being tested.
But again, isn’t this just a sign of a poorly designed test rather than something wrong with multiple choice or standardized tests.
This is pretty much it. When I was in undergrad getting my teaching degree I heard all sorts of crying from the faculty and other students about what a horror this was, including these ridiculous stories about how it would crush the fragile little flower’s confidence. Its a bunch of nonsense. Some form of exit testing is pretty much de riguer in every other first world country, most of whom all do a better job of teaching their children than we do.
As mentioned, the test needs to adequately reflect the curriculum. This is a problem due to the fact that most districts have local control but the tests are designed at the state level.
Keeping material interesting, challenging, and cool for kids who are so academically motivated that they’ll enroll in AP courses is, in my experience, not the real challenge. The real challenge is keeping it interesting for the dyslexic kid, the kid who’s so distracted by an abusive home life that she can barely be bothered to show up at school, the kid who desperately wants to jump up and down a hundred times fast RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW.
Don’t get me wrong–I’m not saying teaching AP courses is a walk in the park. But teaching to those tests with that population is very different from teaching the general pop to a multiple choice test.
No kidding. But I do both. I make it a point to teach at least half my class load in regular, random-draw classes. My point still stands. A good teacher can get almost any kid hooked by something in the curriculum.
Thudlow, AP tests have a very large multiple choice component. It varies by subject, but what I teach, for example, multiple choice adds up to about 33% of the final score. And the questions aren’t easy like the STAR and CAHSEE tests. They’re woolly buggers!
If kids are taught that to answer “one mile is 5280 feet” on a test, but is not told what a mile or a foot is, I wouldn’t consider them educated on the matter.
Picture in your mind a huge funnel. Into the funnel is all of the careless dumping of jizz. The little spout of the funnel is expected to produce educated, funtional Adults. The little spout is the education system and the teachers are poking a rod down through the damn thing to keep it flowing.
This.
I began high school just as standardized tests (SOLs in VA) were enacted. Whiny teachers might have been SOL, but we weren’t.
A test is just a list of stuff you should already know, in question form. I don’t buy the argument that they exist merely to foster rote memorization of unconnected facts. The tests in VA weren’t all multiple-choice; all of them had that component, but they also had short answer and essay questions. So They DID test concepts, and they DID test our ability to analyze information and synthesize explanations.
I don’t see anything to demonize about the tests themselves.
So to answer your question, “teaching to the test” is only a negative to teachers who weren’t teaching the material we were there to learn.
And for those who say it impedes teacher creativity, well phooey on that too. I learned the Doppler Effect from a science teacher who was zooming around the school parking lot on his motorcycle. If you’re a good teacher, you’ll find a way. Period.
Why would your teachers be SOL? And why is it whining to think that your educational time could be better spent on things other than learning how to take a high stakes test? This hostility towards teachers seems like it comes from some personal place, because you don’t hear too many students defending the test as this wonderful thing but condemning the teachers as whiners because they’d rather spend instructional time on other, probably more valuable, things.
Is it? The test my students take does not test rote knowledge. It’s supposed to test their ability comprehend what they read and answer multiple choice and very short answer questions about it in a timed situation. It’s a very artificial and limited way to examine a person’s reading comprehension skills. Now, before you call me a whiner, 93% of my students last year got a passing grade on the test, which is considered outstanding. But that just proves my point-- the test is so dumb that only kids with real problems fail. I could just tell you who those kids are without the test, and spend that time on more authentic tasks.
I don’t think you should buy it, since that’s not what ours test either. They test skills that kids should have in an artificial and sometimes alienating way.
I think they are generally a poorly written waste of time. Perhaps a better instrument could be designed that I wouldn’t find so annoying. But these tests are part of life, and they’re not going away, so there’s little point in railing against them. I don’t spend a lot of time teaching to them, but I do give multiple choice and short answer questions on my assessments throughout the year to give kids practice and build skills when maybe I’d do it differently, and I do spend about a week or so practicing old tests, which I’d rather spend on other, more engaging subject matter. We lose several days taking the test, several days grading them, all time I’d rather be teaching them. Such is life.
This is really missing the point. Even teachers whose students do well on the test complain about the test. This is not about my ego, or challenges to my autonomy. This is about the fact that I only have limited time with these kids, and want to spend it on things that I think will help them throughout life, not just on one stupid test.
It doesn’t impede teacher creativity. It’s just a waste of time, by and large. Period.
There’s no question some tests are inadequate to measure grasp of information, be it facts or concepts.
My own observation is that good exams are nevertheless superior to every other measurement device in sorting out–on average–the competent from the incompetent.
Sure; you might be Professor Einstein and school exams just don’t work at your level. More likely, if you cannot do well on exams, you are not very bright.
Exam design should follow course design. When it does, then “teaching to the test” is simply teaching the material. Period. An examination is just that: a test to see whether or not the material is mastered.
It is my personal suspicion that those most suspicious of the exam process are either poor students or poor teachers. Excellent students and excellent teachers want better exams. Those who simply complain they don’t want to “teach to the test” are frequently those who do not want either their teaching skills or their students’ ability to master material subjected to external review.
Taking exams–particularly standardized exams–is itself a skillset to learn. The bright learn it. The less bright can’t, and don’t. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions.
I will take the neurosurgeon and pilot who aced their exams over the ones who barely passed any day. Barely passing might get you a diploma or license; it does not compel me to trust you as far as the individual whose performance on those tests–inadequate as they may be–was stellar.
So what about exams that don’t follow any course at all? Just “Here’s some math and English you’re supposed to know by the 4th grade”? Then, because you’re teaching a special ed class, these kids don’t know a goddamn thing about any 4th grade level math and English, most can barely write or add. Then you spend 2 weeks cramming incomprehensible test answers down their throats because the principal says so, but being a teacher, you’d rather teach the kids to read. But, hey, ISATs are more important than reading, right? Literate kids don’t pay the bills, pointless tests do.
You’re right that the good teachers want better exams. You’re wrong that these aren’t the same teachers complaining about standardized testing. The teacher knows the class, and the school board knows what is supposed to be taught. Why don’t we let the teacher write the test under review of the school board? Any generic one-size-fit-all test will be very bad at actually testing what was taught in class.
Certainly. Diagramming sentences is a skillset to learn as well. When was the last time you took a standardized test or diagrammed a sentence for your job?
So, you ask 50-60 year old doctors and pilots what kinds of grades they got in their 20s before you trust them? Or do you, you know, ask around about their professional reputation? Do you put your test grades on your resume?
I’m fucking awesome at standardized tests. I scored 99th percentile on every ISAT test we took in school. 99th percentile on the ACT and GED (a year out of high school) and the ASVAB without studying a thing. I got an A in every college class that used multiple choice exams.This past year I took and passed the Fundamentals of Engineering exam without so much as cracking a book to study for it. I know people who are vastly superior to me in every aspect of life, college, and engineering who aren’t even in the same ballpark as me in test scores. These tests don’t measure anything except for my ability to take a test.
So, to recap, the people complaining about standardized testing aren’t the Einsteins and shitty teachers of the world, but those who actually want kids to be competent in life outside of a scantron.
Chief Pedant, I think you’re partly right. As you say, “good exams are nevertheless superior to every other measurement device in sorting out–on average–the competent from the incompetent”; but “good exams” have to involve doing the thing you’re testing. A driving test should involve actual driving; a writing test should involve actual writing; a math test should involve doing mathematics. If a standardized test is multiple choice—as many of them are because they’re easier to administer, easier to score, easier to quantify, and easier to standardize—it can’t really measure what needs to be measured.
And the counterpart to “teaching to the test,” from the student’s point of view, is “learning to take that sort of test.” If taking the test is a substantially different activity than actually doing writing, mathematics, etc., then learning to take the test is not the same thing as learning writing, math, etc.
I agree with you both that the people have the right (to a certain extent) to determine what is taught. I was talking about unintended consequences. No one said that history and science and social studies are unimportant. Stressing math and English so much is having that effect.
When I was involved in our district’s GATE parents advocacy group, I sat through lots of talks about how teachers are supposed to tailor instruction to each student in the class, even if the ability level is diverse. I buy the theory, but I don’t see how it works in practice, especially as classes get more crowded. Reducing variance in a classroom has to make teaching easier and more effective.
I wonder if those who think that classes shouldn’t be built around students of similar abilities would think the same about football teams.
And my poor little ego was crushed, just crushed, about not being allowed on the football team. (Well, my high school didn’t have one, but you get the point.) Elitism is just fine in other areas, just not where brains are involved.
My district has a really nice program to teach stuff like car repair so that kids who are not suited to college can get jobs after high school graduation. But kids who are suited should get a shot at college, even if their parents can’t afford it.
I think the problem here is that the decent jobs for those without college and without skills like plumbing have disappeared. College is supposed to make people ready for the good jobs that supposedly don’t need any real skills, just a piece of paper. If there is a better future for those who don’t belong in college, we might see the push for college for all decrease.