Too many tests
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I agree with these teachers. Students have TOO MANY TESTS! (Also too much homework, which is why I am spending less time on blog posts.)
They spend so much time testing us that we don’t have a chance to learn new skills and new information. Maybe that’s their point.
Teacher group says schools should ease up on testing
Educators say they feel the pressure of ratings system.
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, September 11, 2007The third week of school is under way. In other words, it’s time to start testing.
In the Austin school district, some teachers must start giving benchmark tests, which measures students’ strengths and weaknesses heading into the new year.
. . . . .
The statewide Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills is the favorite punching bag of teachers and parents who say schools are too focused on tests.
But Malfaro said that much of the testing burden in Austin comes not from the state but from district officials who require teachers to give district-produced tests throughout the year.
Ann Smisko, the Austin school district’s associate superintendent for
curriculum, said the district, like most, “regularly assesses students for one main reason: to ensure that children receive better, more focused classroom instruction.”Smisko said the district uses benchmark tests at the start of school to see where students are, in the middle of the year to measure progress and at the end to see whether students need extra help before moving to the next grade.
District officials said the number of days per year that a class spends on testing varies by grade and campus.
Ken Zarifis, who teaches eighth-grade language arts at Burnet Middle School in North Austin, said he and colleagues spend more than 40 of the 180 instructional days in a school year giving tests that they do not write themselves.
Those tests include state-written exams such as the TAKS and district-produced tests, such as six-week exams and the three-times-a-year benchmark tests.
Filed under: Education, Featured Stories, FrecklesCassie, Young Adult Issues, schools, testing
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There is way too much time devoted to testing and to preparing for tests. Too much teacher time and too much student time.
Cassie:
A test is supposed to be a “reenforcement.” It is not supposed to be punishment. Maybe, if there had been a little more testing when I was growing up, I would have read the Constitution and the rest of the founding documents in high-school, instead of sitting in a fox-hole in Vietnam. A test for the sake of a test is, granted, a dumb idea. But if you are lucky enough to be studying well thought-out material then a good test should make the stuff stick with you for the rest of your life. I’m just sayin. You are one of the more intellegent people in the country (I don’t see a whole lot of other people running a political blog). Take the bloody tests, complain all you like, but learn the material, and don’t burn your notes at the end.