Post by Moses on May 13, 2004 11:31:35 GMT -5
A Student Speaks Out: The Downside of Testing Frenzy
Newport News Superintendent Marcus Newsome's op-ed piece about improving public schools' performance left me feeling cynical ("Facing the brutal facts," May 5). Though it is admirable that he wants to raise the schools from "good to great," it seems that very few people think about the costs of measuring our greatness by multiple-choice standardized tests.
As a 2002 graduate of a Newport News high school, my life could be reduced to a series of standardized tests. The first one was in kindergarten, then several rounds of Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, Literacy Passport Tests, Standards of Learning tests, Objective Referenced Tests, SATs and Advanced Placement exams. The results of these tests, which come in the form of seemingly arbitrary numbers, seem to say that I'm a decent student. That's good and well, but let's consider for a moment what it has really meant for my education.
By the time I reached high school, teachers were panicking about the SOL's by mid-fall. They were required by the curriculum to "teach to the test." One particularly amazing teacher told me how she was expected to leave out a certain era of United States history because it was not tested on the SOL. She taught us the section anyhow, since it was, after all, on the AP exam, and history is not exactly something that should be taught with gaps, but how many teachers have the wherewithal or even the energy and time to teach "extra" portions of history or chemistry or literature? Though I had a series of wonderful and highly influential teachers throughout my high school career, I would venture to say that many teachers acquiesce to the institutionalized pattern of education that the country has embraced since even before the No Child Left Behind Act.
Following graduation, I spent a year abroad and am now a student at an Ivy League university. The central skill stressed in American schools - being able to pass multiple-guess tests - has brought me nothing. Teachers and students at my school in Germany scoffed at the American standard of success. Indeed, it is hard to compare our schools to theirs, where students sit for four grueling days of written and oral exams that cover several years' worth of curriculum in order to graduate and be able to attend college. The skills valued in the rest of the world (and in American higher education) are analysis and critical thinking, which are not skills that students are likely to master when they're being taught to regurgitate canned facts.
Luckily, I had teachers who were able to teach me the skills that enable me to stay at par with my new peer group, but observing the education of children still in Newport News schools, I know that many are not so lucky.
If the United States wants to raise a generation of well-rounded individuals, standardized tests are not the way. If we keep reducing our standards to these quasi-utilitarian norms, American students will not be equipped to compete in the global workforce. My plea to all politicians is this: Scrap the asinine SOLs and start teaching students real skills.
Horning, a former Newport News resident, lives in Providence, R.I. n
— Kate Horning
Daily Press
2004-05-13
www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-08499sy0may13,0,6064877.story?coll=dp-opinion-editorials
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Newport News Superintendent Marcus Newsome's op-ed piece about improving public schools' performance left me feeling cynical ("Facing the brutal facts," May 5). Though it is admirable that he wants to raise the schools from "good to great," it seems that very few people think about the costs of measuring our greatness by multiple-choice standardized tests.
As a 2002 graduate of a Newport News high school, my life could be reduced to a series of standardized tests. The first one was in kindergarten, then several rounds of Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, Literacy Passport Tests, Standards of Learning tests, Objective Referenced Tests, SATs and Advanced Placement exams. The results of these tests, which come in the form of seemingly arbitrary numbers, seem to say that I'm a decent student. That's good and well, but let's consider for a moment what it has really meant for my education.
By the time I reached high school, teachers were panicking about the SOL's by mid-fall. They were required by the curriculum to "teach to the test." One particularly amazing teacher told me how she was expected to leave out a certain era of United States history because it was not tested on the SOL. She taught us the section anyhow, since it was, after all, on the AP exam, and history is not exactly something that should be taught with gaps, but how many teachers have the wherewithal or even the energy and time to teach "extra" portions of history or chemistry or literature? Though I had a series of wonderful and highly influential teachers throughout my high school career, I would venture to say that many teachers acquiesce to the institutionalized pattern of education that the country has embraced since even before the No Child Left Behind Act.
Following graduation, I spent a year abroad and am now a student at an Ivy League university. The central skill stressed in American schools - being able to pass multiple-guess tests - has brought me nothing. Teachers and students at my school in Germany scoffed at the American standard of success. Indeed, it is hard to compare our schools to theirs, where students sit for four grueling days of written and oral exams that cover several years' worth of curriculum in order to graduate and be able to attend college. The skills valued in the rest of the world (and in American higher education) are analysis and critical thinking, which are not skills that students are likely to master when they're being taught to regurgitate canned facts.
Luckily, I had teachers who were able to teach me the skills that enable me to stay at par with my new peer group, but observing the education of children still in Newport News schools, I know that many are not so lucky.
If the United States wants to raise a generation of well-rounded individuals, standardized tests are not the way. If we keep reducing our standards to these quasi-utilitarian norms, American students will not be equipped to compete in the global workforce. My plea to all politicians is this: Scrap the asinine SOLs and start teaching students real skills.
Horning, a former Newport News resident, lives in Providence, R.I. n
— Kate Horning
Daily Press
2004-05-13
www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-08499sy0may13,0,6064877.story?coll=dp-opinion-editorials
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