If kids score poorly on a test, throw away the test.
That seems to be the attitude in education today. Part of the switch to Common Core Curriculum (CCC )is to not only rewrite the tests given but to change the format entirely. After a year of listening to propaganda about the CCC, I still have no idea what they mean by the new tests. There are words that keep coming up about them, technology, cooperative, project based, inquiry and such. These are all buzzwords in education that mean whatever the educators want them to mean.
Turn back the clock. When I was in high school we took something called the Ohio State Test. We lived in California and we took the Ohio State Test. It was a test that was normed nation wide and was widely respected. I could not find any reference to in when I Googled it. Maybe they have changed the name.
We were not warned ahead of time. There was no extended time of review and test preparation. We just showed up and took the tests. At the time I was basically a “B” student. I was too smart to get C’s and too lazy to get A’s. My wife and kids came across my test scores recently. They were shocked that my average score was the 97th percentile. For those of you who are not into statistics, that does not mean I got 97% of the questions right. It means that I scored better than 97% of the people who took the test.
Yes, I was smarter than the average bear. That is not my point. My observation is that I scored very high on genuine standardized tests but only had a “B” average. Today we have schools full of kids with “A+” averages that score low on dumbed down tests.
Welcome to modern education. It is a world of dumbing down and social promotion. It is a world where they talk of rigor and refuse to fail. It is a world of raising the bar but lowering the bar holders.
I question whether it is the students or the adults that are dumber today.
I am sure that CCC will fix all this, aren’t you?
homo unius libri
The students aren't dumb, they just educate themselves on other, less important things, because the adults don't bother to teach them anything useful.
ReplyDeleteThey also get immediate gratification from what they pursue because they have not vision of the future.
DeleteGrace and peace.
Wow; "The Ohio State Test" sounds familiar. It rattles some memory cells; mandatory #2 pencils; ...
ReplyDeleteWasn't that back during the days when people politely walked on the right hand side of hallways, sidewalks, and stairs instead of meandering about like a herd of house-cats?
You mean to say that those kinds of things are not just dreams that I have an an alternate reality? Either we had the same bad pizza or people did have manners once.
DeleteGrace and peace.
We took a similar test when I was in school in the late 1960's. I think it was called the Iowa test.
ReplyDeleteI am always glad to know that my memory has some potential basis in reality.
DeleteGrace and peace