Divergent thoughts about education and other pertinent matters
Great blog by Alfie Kohn
Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
-
Alfie Kohn does a nice job articulating just how trapped we are in a
standardized test paradigm and the implications for teaching. Click here for the full article.
Last week Texas Commissioner of Education, Mike Morath, again stated his belief that all students can pass each STAAR test and therefore all students and all schools can be successful within the accountability program he is designing. His argument is this: STAAR is a criterion-referenced test, not a norm-referenced test, and thus all kids can pass it. When a friend of mine in attendance questioned this, Commissioner Morath acknowledged some superintendents did not believe this was the case and declared it a “difference of opinion.” When it comes to the world of educational testing and educational accountability, I’m something of a testing and accountability expert. I’ve worked in that world for the better part of my career. I’ve written a book and a number of articles specifically about what such tests were designed to do (which is far more limited than most people think). I’ve read a ton by others way smarter than me on the subject whose work has helped inform my understandings, and...
It is inexplicable to me how the failed policies of test-based accountability continue to be championed as if they have worked in the past and will continue to work into the future. The position of those espousing the effectiveness of test-based accountability can only be valid if at some point in the past all schools were essentially equal, and then good or bad educators created the disparities between what are now labeled “good” and “bad” schools. Then, the current accountability systems might reflect the efforts of those educators and the judgments would be warranted. Of course, that is a joke. Schools never started at a level playing field. The first time anyone administered a standardized test to the universe of students in America what it showed were the effects of an inequitable society as well as the size and scope of a problem. But it was much easier for Americans to ignore the problem and instead declare that poor children were just dumber than rich children and that the caus...
Texas just released more of its school grading nonsense. I imagined myself in a Q&A situation. This was done with my home state in mind, but this applies much more broadly. It is way too long for a blog, but it needs to be somewhere. 1. What is a standardized test like the ones used by Texas to create its ratings designed to show? Surprisingly little. Standardized testing is a methodology that allows a researcher to observe the patterns in a population of students relative to a defined domain. So, for example, if students in some neighborhoods have more of the domain than in others. Its genius is that it does this without ever asking or knowing how much of the domain any student possesses. No one can measure the amount of literacy any student possesses—just as you can’t measure the amount of humor, cleverness, or grit any student possesses. But it is possible to observe when a student has more or less of a trait than their peers. That is a tiny bit of information, but it is enough ...
Comments
Post a Comment