Poll
Question:
Would/will you keep your child/ren from taking the ISATs in the future?
Option 1: I see no value in the tests, but my kids would/will take them.
Option 2: I see great value in the tests, so my kids will/would take them.
Option 3: There's money involved, so it doesn't matter if there's value or not in the tests, my kids will/would take them.
Option 4: No, I'll be keeping my kids away from the ISATs.
Option 5: I'm not American, and I find these tests to be silly.
Option 6: I'm not American, and this seems like a good way to evaluate students.
Option 7: I have no opinion but I really feel a need to vote.
I've long had issues with the whole ISATs thing. I agree with the guy in this article that says that it's not a good indicator of what children (and schools) can do, and it takes valuable time out of classroom instruction to prepare and take the tests. (Riley's school spent four weeks preparing for the tests and then two weeks taking it.) However, because funding is directly tied to how well schools do and my kids tend to hit the 95-99%, I've always let them take the tests. Besides, keeping them from the tests isn't going to give them classroom material; it just means them sitting in the library playing on the computer for six weeks.
What do you guys think?
Link (Preemptive strike: Totally not hitable) (http://articles.cnn.com/2011-03-20/us/pennsylvania.school.testing_1_standardized-tests-schools-park-forest-elementary?_s=PM:US)
QuoteMother hopes others will opt out of standardized testing
Pennsylvania mother Michele Gray: "The more I look at standardized tests, the more I realize that we have, as parents, been kind of sold a bill of goods."
A Pennsylvania mother has decided she does not want her two children to take the two-week-long standardized tests given by her state as part of the federal No Child Left Behind law. And she hopes other parents will do the same.
Michele Gray's sons -- Ted Rosenblum, 11, and John Michael Rosenblum, 9 -- did independent study the week of March 14 while their classmates were filling in hundreds of bubbles in classrooms with doors marked, "Quiet. Testing in Progress."
Gray says the only legal exemption that would allow her kids to sit out the tests was a religious objection. So that's what she did.
But Gray says her concerns go well beyond religion. "The more I look at standardized tests, the more I realize that we have, as parents, been kind of sold a bill of goods."
She says the tests are not accurate measures of accomplishment, create undue anxiety for students and are used to punish schools.
She gives the example of her sons' award-winning school, Park Forest Elementary, which last year was put on "warning" status after the school's special education students fell below the level of progress the state expects on their exams.
"The more I looked at it, the more outraged I became," Gray said, "This is not something I want to be contributing to (or) something I want my children participating in."
Dr. Timothy Slekar, an associate professor of education at Penn State Altoona, agrees. It was his op-ed piece on the Huffington Post website that inspired Gray to take action.
Slekar is also a father and this year chose not to allow his 11-year-old son Luke to take the tests. He says schools are narrowing their curricula in an effort to boost test scores and wasting too much time preparing for, and then taking, the tests.
He says the tests aren't an accurate indicator of a child's -- or a school's -- performance. "I'm a father and an educator who's finally said, 'This is it. I'm done.' Something has to give. Something has to change," Slekar said.
Another education professor, Dana Mitra, also isn't happy with the tests, but decided to allow her third-grader daughter to take them this year because she's afraid that holding her daughter out could harm the school's test results.
"Given that we're interested in wanting our schools to be the best that they can, we feel pressure as parents to want to help our school," she said. She's not sure what she'll do with her daughter next year.
Starving your school of funds is definitely the smartest parenting choice.
I of course, will keep them from the Illinois Standards Achievement Test. keep your filthy foreign test out of Ohio schools. Har har.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2011, 06:48:13 PM
Starving your school of funds is definitely the smartest parenting choice.
I agree. The question is how to get rid of a worthless test that only hurts schools without large numbers of parents opting out? Personally, my kids will continue to take the tests because our schools need the funding. But that really leaves me in a bind as to the best way to say, "Get rid of NCLB!"
Quote from: Ed Anger on March 23, 2011, 06:49:08 PM
I of course, will keep them from the Illinois Standards Achievement Test. keep your filthy foreign test out of Ohio schools. Har har.
:moon:
Write your Congressman a detailed letter outlining your opposition.
And, it being Illinois, enclose a whopping bribe.
Quote
Quote from: Ed Anger on March 23, 2011, 06:49:08 PM
I of course, will keep them from the Illinois Standards Achievement Test. keep your filthy foreign test out of Ohio schools. Har har.
:moon:
To be serious, I pretty much loathe most of the standardized test thing and tests to graduate. But I come from an era when I didn't have to do that shit.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2011, 06:55:19 PM
Write your Congressman a detailed letter outlining your opposition.
This I've done.
Quote
And, it being Illinois, enclose a whopping bribe.
It being Illinois, I don't make nearly enough for this. :(
Yeah, let's get rid of No Child Left Behind, 'cause I fully endorse leaving some kids behind. ;)
Seriously, I'm a "abolish the Department of Education" conservative, so of course I'm against NCLB. I've got no particular philosophical objections to standardized tests mandated by states as long as they are actually mandated by individual states on their own, not forced on them by the feds.
Quote from: dps on March 23, 2011, 07:04:49 PM
Yeah, let's get rid of No Child Left Behind, 'cause I fully endorse leaving some kids behind. ;)
Seriously, I'm a "abolish the Department of Education" conservative, so of course I'm against NCLB. I've got no particular philosophical objections to standardized tests mandated by states as long as they are actually mandated by individual states on their own, not forced on them by the feds.
That's actually the huge gaping hole in NCLB. Each state gets to write it's own test and decide what a passing score is.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2011, 07:06:26 PM
Quote from: dps on March 23, 2011, 07:04:49 PM
Yeah, let's get rid of No Child Left Behind, 'cause I fully endorse leaving some kids behind. ;)
Seriously, I'm a "abolish the Department of Education" conservative, so of course I'm against NCLB. I've got no particular philosophical objections to standardized tests mandated by states as long as they are actually mandated by individual states on their own, not forced on them by the feds.
That's actually the huge gaping hole in NCLB. Each state gets to write it's own test and decide what a passing score is.
Yes, but they were forced to implement standard tests by the feds.
Listen to your body.
Exams prove little but that the taker is good at exams.
Yet the way of the world is they must be taken.
Quote from: Tyr on March 24, 2011, 06:38:56 PM
Exams prove little but that the taker is good at exams.
:lol: This line just gets better with age.
Quote from: Tyr on March 24, 2011, 06:38:56 PM
Exams prove little but that the taker is good at exams.
I think that is probably true of exams inside class where students memorize the info, spit it out, and then forget all about it. But standardized tests are slightly different.
Do other countries have standardized college admissions tests?
Texas always had these tests and they were super easy to pass. I do not anticipate them being a big deal for my kids.
Ours is, last I checked, called the The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. When I was a kid it was called the Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills and then the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills when I was in HIgh School.
Same freaking test though.
Quote from: Valmy on March 24, 2011, 07:02:27 PM
Texas always had these tests and they were super easy to pass. I do not anticipate them being a big deal for my kids.
Ours is, last I checked, called the The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. When I was a kid it was called the Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills and then the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills when I was in HIgh School.
Same freaking test though.
My complaint has nothing to do with how easy or hard it is to pass. My complaint is that it's a waste of valuable educational time for a test that doesn't prove anything regarding how well a school teaches or a student learns..
Meri, do you think that the Illinois test has *zero* value in measuring the progress of the retards?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 24, 2011, 08:36:20 PM
Meri, do you think that the Illinois test has *zero* value in measuring the progress of the retards?
I think that there is value in doing a general assessment of the student population, but I disagree with how these tests are used and how they're applied. Remember, I grew up in Iowa where, like Texas, standardized testing was a way of life. But it was handled very differently than it is here.
When I was in school, you did schoolwork, and then one week a year, you did the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. There was no prep for it other than one or two practice runs so we knew how to actually take the test (as in what was allowed in the classroom, how to fill in the bubbles, what you could and could not do before, during and after the tests, etc.). Then, test days came, we took the test in the morning, did regular classwork in the afternoon, and it was no big deal. The tests were used by the teachers and school administrators to assess how well we did, what classes to put us in the next year, and what areas to concentrate on for the classrooms as a whole. Money was funneled into the schools that weren't doing well to add special help, and special programs were added at the schools doing exceptionally well to help challenge the gifted kids.
It's entirely different here (and now). The tests take up more than a month to prep with special vocabulary lists taken directly from previous ISATs (and having nothing to do with the coursework the kids are actually working on), revisiting fundamentals in math and science (which is great, but for a month??), test-taking methodology, and a whole lot of stress put on making sure the kids are there (but specifically the kids who do well). Not only that, but that's a month where the kids aren't doing regular school work, or are doing a very stunted version of it. And how well the kids do dictates how much money the school district will get in the next school year. Not that money will be funneled in to HELP the schools but rather that if they don't do well they'll be PUNISHED by money being taken away!
So, I guess, long story short, I see value in standardized testing but not in the way that it's being done today.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 24, 2011, 07:00:45 PM
Do other countries have standardized college admissions tests?
They're pretty common in Europe and East Asia. The Chinese one is a killer, given the competition.
Meri: it sounds like your beef is with the Illinois Dept. of Education then, not NCLB. The only people who should be cramming for it are the remedials and the ESLs.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 24, 2011, 10:54:19 PM
Meri: it sounds like your beef is with the Illinois Dept. of Education then, not NCLB. The only people who should be cramming for it are the remedials and the ESLs.
No one should cram for it. It's a test to see where people actually are, not to see how much they can force into their little minds the week or two before the test.
And I have an issue with the NCLB because of the funding aspect.
Quote from: merithyn on March 25, 2011, 07:14:39 AM
And I have an issue with the NCLB because of the funding aspect.
You think the federal government shouldn't be shoveling money at schools to improve the performance of poor-performing students?
NCLB needs to go, but bring on the tests. Test early, test often, and actually use the individual test scores to move kids into the appropriate academic programs.
I'm still a bit resentful that they mixed dumb kids in with smart kids in my elementary school and some of my junior high/high school classes. Can you tell?
Quote from: derspiess on March 25, 2011, 10:42:43 AM
I'm still a bit resentful that they mixed dumb kids in with smart kids in my elementary school and some of my junior high/high school classes. Can you tell?
You're going to get crucified for this line bubba.:bleeding:
Quote from: derspiess on March 25, 2011, 10:42:43 AM
NCLB needs to go, but bring on the tests. Test early, test often, and actually use the individual test scores to move kids into the appropriate academic programs.
I'm still a bit resentful that they mixed dumb kids in with smart kids in my elementary school and some of my junior high/high school classes. Can you tell?
Thank Hod for honors classes.
Quote from: Valmy on March 25, 2011, 10:46:26 AM
Thank Hod for honors classes.
Yeah that's how I felt when in my honors classes one student as where France was on a map and one student stated that they really didn't think racism was an issue anymore...
Quote from: garbon on March 25, 2011, 10:48:46 AM
Yeah that's how I felt when in my honors classes one student as where France was on a map and one student stated that they really didn't think racism was an issue anymore...
Honors classes may not have been elitist enough but they were better than nothing. Hey racism may not have been an issue for them :P
Quote from: Valmy on March 25, 2011, 10:50:18 AM
Honors classes may not have been elitist enough but they were better than nothing. Hey racism may not have been an issue for them :P
Not personally suffering from an issue does not mean it isn't occurring. :P
Quote from: derspiess on March 25, 2011, 10:42:43 AM
I'm still a bit resentful that they mixed dumb kids in with smart kids in my elementary school and some of my junior high/high school classes. Can you tell?
Why, did it make you feel inferior?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2011, 10:44:08 AM
You're going to get crucified for this line bubba.:bleeding:
I know. Don't care. Bring on the easy, unimaginative jokes.
Quote from: garbon on March 25, 2011, 10:48:46 AM
Yeah that's how I felt when in my honors classes one student as where France was on a map and one student stated that they really didn't think racism was an issue anymore...
Honors, AP & college prep classes did a pretty good job of grouping students by capability at my high school. They also had "general" and "basic" categories of classes. And some kids were bussed off to the county Vo-Tech center for the morning or afternoon. But it didn't go as far enough as I would have liked (I guess the Vo-Tech buses didn't go far away enough either, for that matter).
But in elementary school it was painful having the pace set by the slowest kids in class, whom also tended to be the troublemakers. My smarter teachers would split the classes into different groups, though that meant they'd have to limit their time with each group and cover the same material 2 or 3 times.
Quote from: derspiess on March 25, 2011, 10:42:43 AM
I'm still a bit resentful that they mixed dumb kids in with smart kids in my elementary school and some of my junior high/high school classes. Can you tell?
FWIW I stopped being angry at the having-missed-big-opportunity-because-they-taught-for-tards-instead-of-me shit when I had my moral epiphany at 28.
Tests are bad. Like vaccinations or Western medicine. :yes:
Everybody is a genius and a unique snowflake.
Michigan has had this sort of test since I was in grade school. One of my college profs was on the state Board of Education at the time they instituted the exams. He said that it had been a mistake to make the tests the way they did, since they were supposed to test a minimal proficiency that every student should have. Schools would aim for this proficiency and (as he was fond of saying) the minimum became the maximum.
I got a perfect score on the one I took in high school; which makes me the Maximal Minimum Michigander. :)