Standardized Testing Rant

It appears that many people outside of the education field are looking at educators and students as if they aren’t even humans but rather a product. Unfortunately, the mania of looking at education like a business model is killing education in this country! All the finger pointing and the lack of respect toward teachers is not helping matters either.

A while back I read a newspaper article where a local superintendent compared students with packages.

“Suppose UPS or Federal Express said they were only going to deliver two-thirds of their packages?” he asked. “Two-thirds doesn't cut it in those areas …and it doesn't cut it in education either.”

• What if half of the packages you are supposed to deliver don’t have addresses on them and you have to figure out where to deliver them?
• What if the UPS workers were expected to deliver 100 packages within a one hour time period and all addresses were at least 50 miles apart from each other?
• What if the Fed Ex workers were supposed to load 500 packages onto a truck that could only hold 200 packages?
• What if some customers didn’t pay for delivery but your boss told you to deliver them anyway?
• What if half of your UPS workers drove brand new trucks with heat and ac while the other half drove old, beat up trucks with no heat or air conditioning?

That sounds pretty absurd doesn’t it? Well, that’s how absurd it is to try to run schools like businesses and compare teaching students with delivering packages.

He is even trying to make a change in salaries by paying teachers based on merit rather than years of experience or advanced degrees. Just like in the article if you don’t perform well enough well then you have to face the consequences by receiving lower pay or even termination whereas if you are performing well then you will be rewarded.

Unfortunately, teachers are judged based on their students’ test scores at the end of the year. Oh, and BTW, just because some students don’t perform well on their EOCs or EOGs does not mean the teacher is incompetent and just because some students do score well does not mean the teacher is a “master” teacher. In my humble opinion, one test score is a very unfair evaluation. Also, there are so many factors to consider when it comes to educating students. Each student and each situation is unique. Students aren’t robots. Students aren’t machines. Students aren’t objects. They are human beings. No matter what the experts say, teaching is nothing like meeting a sales quota or delivering packages.

• Some students come from broken homes without food, electricity, or loving parents.
• Some students are being abused and they just want to survive!
• Other students have learning disabilities.
• Some students are way below grade level.
• Some students come from privileged homes with a lot of support.
• Some students are way above grade level.
• Many classrooms contain all of these students mixed in one class.
• Some schools have enough textbooks and materials.
• Other schools are falling apart and the heat or ac doesn’t work.
• Some students are having a bad day on the day of the test.

I’ve even heard of situations where teachers taught students who were way below grade level and brought the kids up two grade levels by the end of the school year and they worked so hard yet because they didn’t perform at or above grade level like the higher ups thought they should be they were considered a “bad” teacher. Good teaching is not always equal to good test scores. Sorry! Now do I believe in holding teachers accountable? Absolutely! But this whole standardized test craze is ineffective and is absolutely absurd. There are better ways to assess student and teacher performance.

I recently came across yet another article which blames teachers for the poor performance of their students on standardized tests:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6816752.html

Am I the only one who is noticing that the blame is constantly blamed on the teachers and never the parents, the administrators, the superintendant, the school board, politicians and policy makers, society?  Why is it always the teacher's fault?  I realize there are some incompetent teachers.  There are incompetent people in every field.  But to constantly lay blame on teachers, and only teachers without taking other factors into consideration is wrong! 

Our education system in the US is broken and the more political it gets and the more business-minded people who have no clue as to how education should be take over and try to “fix” things, the worse it is going to get! That is a scary thought.

Furthermore, with the constant blame set on teachers that appears online, in newspapers, magazines, in the news, in movies, on the radio, etc. parents and others have no choice but to believe it because they are brainwashed into thinking it since that is all they hear and read about.  So how can teachers gain the respect they deserve?  How can they take the classroom back?  How can they make a change so they can do what they are meant to do which is teach and engage students rather than teaching to the test? 

In the real world people collaborate, research, work in cooperative groups, communicate, utilize critical thinking skills, develop and implement new and creative ideas and concepts, utilize knowledge and skills in different ways and in different situations, and on and on and on...How in the world do standardized tests teach any of these real-world life skills that students should learn while in school?  They are the exact opposite of real life!  I have yet to show my knowledge or skills at work or perform a job function by sitting in a cold room filled with stress and tension and filling in multiple choice answers.