Why are we placing emphasis on standardized testing as our educational panacea, when the countries that are beating us globally use it as an evaluation tool to assist students (only)?
Does "teaching to the test" increase student capabilities and knowledge?
This depends on whether the test is good. For multiple-choice tests, "teaching to the test" means focusing on the content that will be on the test, sometimes even drilling on test items, and using the format of the test as a basis for teaching. Since this kind of teaching to the test leads primarily to improved test-taking skills, increases in test scores do not necessarily mean improvement in real academic performance.
Teaching to the test also narrows the curriculum, forcing teachers and students to concentrate on memorization of isolated facts, instead of developing fundamental and higher order abilities. Washington Post
We've had fires and record heat waves; mild winters; hurricanes in New York and freak snowstorms on Halloween in New England (both resulting in power outages). Parts of the Midwest, Maryland and the eastern seaboard has for the most part been without power after freak violent storms. Yet, we question climate change as a result of a warming globe. More than a few Americans don't know what the decision by the Supreme Court on the Affordable Care Act means to them; that the origination of a mandate (for which derisive humor has been spun ad nauseum), came from former Republican Senator Bob Bennett and championed by Former Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Teaching to the test also narrows the curriculum, forcing teachers and students to concentrate on memorization of isolated facts, instead of developing fundamental and higher order abilities.
Like the higher order ability of governing a democracy. It's a bit of a stretch, linking climate change to education and governance, but not much.
We need reason and legislation that will create jobs, and an educational system that will prepare kids for future careers requiring skillsets to repair robots, not a high school diploma/GED to drill widgets on a production floor. We're fast becoming a nation predicted by James Boggs: automation and (his word) "cybernation" rules.
We need an educated electorate for this country to be successful, not a bewildered herd.
Oligarchy/Plutocracy are false equivalencies to democracy.
"By their votes, the people exercise their sovereignty." Thomas Jefferson
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