Show me someone who says they need test scores and I'll show you a teacher who is likely forced to teach too many kids in a class, day, month, term or year...
or...
... I'll show you someone who isn't a teacher at all and never spends time with kids but needs numbers to make decisions that will affect teachers and students.
Either way, the need for test scores by the former or the latter are not needs to be accommodated - rather they are problems to be solved.
Once teachers are afforded the opportunity to come into contact with an appropriately limited number of kids and decisions about education are made by actual educators, we would find ourselves needing test scores less and less.
So the next time someone says they need test scores, ask you might say: That's nice, but what do the kids need?
The system has even made some teachers believe that their success depends on improving test scores. I know math teachers whose whole program is built around the standards being tested. Math lends itself nicely to that so test scores do improve.
ReplyDeleteIt just seems to me like a nice way to "teaching to the test," and I wonder what those students are missing out on. Sadly, the students are happy because like a video game they get to keep track of their scores and show improvement.