Study: Standardized Tests Overwhelming Public Schools (washingtonpost.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A new study examined the amount of time U.S. public schools spend on government-mandated standardized tests, and found that the requirements are detrimental to both students and teachers. On average, students will take 112 standardized tests during their K-12 education. From grades 3-11, students spend over 20 hours per year on standardized tests alone. "It portrays a chock-a-block jumble, where tests have been layered upon tests under mandates from Congress, the U.S. Department of Education and state and local governments, many of which the study argues have questionable value to teachers and students. Testing companies that aggressively market new exams also share the blame, the study said."

The U.S. Department of Education has issued an action plan to school districts outlining ways to reduce useless tests and eliminate redundant ones. President Obama even posted a video pledging to reduce the test load of American students. "Standardized testing has caused intense debate on Capitol Hill as lawmakers work to craft a replacement for No Child Left Behind. Testing critics tried unsuccessfully to erase the federal requirement that schools test in math and reading. Civil rights advocates pushed back, arguing that tests are an important safeguard for struggling students because publicly reported test scores illuminate the achievement gap between historically underserved students and their more affluent peers."

Comments

Re:I know people will go crazy over this idea....

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll add in an anecdote. My mother is a substitute teacher (in Florida) for a class, and has been asked to give out this state given test. The class is something along the very bottom of the school (some kids may not speak english as one possible reason to be in it). Well, the school was asked to give an answer key for the required test, which they didn't give. So I was asked to make a key for her to grade with. The test was horrible. The most obvious problems are with the formatting. There is no clean indication of where a question ends and the next begins. Some of the questions have numbers floating above or below the parenthesis they are supposed to be inside. Some of the questions have multiple answers, which would be fine, if the wording did not seem as if it was trying to misdirect the students on what they are trying to do. It even goes so far that on the answer sheet made for this specific test, the last two questions were obviously switched, as the penultimate had 5 answer fields for 4 possible answers, and the last had 4 answer fields for 5 possible answers. Remember, some of these require selecting more than one bubble.

There is all of that, and not to mention the copy job on making the test was even shoddy. I have no idea if the test is actually from the State, the District, or from the School itself, but the test looked like it was setup for the students to fail on purpose. Being put through things like this, I can only sympathize with the students if they are forced to act out to get any sort of attention. There is certainly a lack of care on the school's part for them.

Re: Did they learn anything??

[MightyYar]

To be fair, public schools also fail. You link to Philly.com. Philadelphia School District doubled funding over 10 years and had absolutely nothing to show for it. While I think that the way we fund schools is bat-shit crazy - giving wealthier kids more resources and poor kids less - please don't summarily dismiss just how corrupt many of our cities' school systems are. You are largely correct that charters funnel money away from kids, and yet in Newark more money reaches students at the charter schools than at the traditional public schools. Small wonder parents go to great lengths to get their kids into charters in certain districts.

Re:Needs of the Teaching Profession

[serviscope_minor]

The needs of teachers are that they remain employed with the highest salary and best benefits they can get.

Yeah those evil profiteering teachers. Everywhere I go I see teachers in ferraris, research scientists drinking champaign!

In the real world not everyone is motivated by greed and capitalism:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

If teachers wanted higher salaries over all else, then why would they buy school supplies out of pocket? Many teachers, a large fraction I think actually want to teach, and teach well. That way like so many humans they can get real satisfaction out of a job well done.