Achievement Testing Interview

The state of Texas has been in a constant struggle within itself over just how to evaluate education, and standardized testing in Texas has been a major influencer in terms of the state’s standards for over thirty years. Though these methods of testing have been utilized for decades, resentment to the tests have been continuously rising among educators, parents, and students, but not everyone agrees. Despite government officials trying to quell these protests with changes to administration, and the way the test itself is formatted and formulated, there seems to have been little to no improvement made and those opposing the tests have started calling for an end to all standardized testing. For one to truly understand this ongoing struggle, one must first look at standardized testing’s beginning, then how government today is trying to fix the broken system, and finally consider the opinions of notable figures in the testing world.

All states have a course standard to follow to set goals for teaching and learning (West, 2018). Teachers use these standards as a guide within their classroom to provide the best learning for their students. Today there is a huge debate between Common Core Standards and the Alabama College and Career Readiness Standards. These two standards are highly debated and investigated amongst teachers, government officials, and parents to understand which standards will enhance student’s academic knowledge. Some state political boards do not agree with the new adoption if the Common Core Standards. After researching both standards and gaining my own opinion, I think to adopt the new Common Core Standards is a positive thing for our school systems. Even though it has some negative like difficult transition for students, standards are vague, and unequal access to technology in the classroom and at home (Meador, 2017). Even with all the cons associated with the Common Core Standards, I think the new Common

Michal is a boy born in Florida who has some special needs. He was born with a brain stem, but not a whole brain. He loves to hear and listen to people talk to him, yet he is morosely incapable of sight, speech, or even understand basic information. He was forced to take an alternate version of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. This year he will be forced to take this test again. He is not alone. This New York times article from February 13, 2014 goes on to give an example of another case. This time it is the story of Andrea Rediske, a Florida parent of a child who is slowly dying from a life burdened by brain damage and cerebral palsy. The state tried to force this child, Ethan, to take this test. In the meantime while Andrea was fighting the school system, Ethan Rediske passed away. It doesn’t have to be this way. Our children aren’t all dying of terrible diseases, but these standardized testing is killing our brothers and sisters creativity and passion for school instead.

This new assessment tool had two major impacts. First, the expectations for individual students were raised by increasing the difficulty of the material on the assessment—no longer were the tests considered minimal skills tests. Passing each of the reading, writing and mathematics components of the grade 10 test, also known as the exit-level exam, was a requirement for receiving a high school diploma in the state. Second, schools were also held to higher standards with the expectation that not only the campus as whole but the specific subpopulations (African-American, Caucasian, Hispanic, and Economically Disadvantaged) had to achieve minimal standards. Passing rates on these standardized exams, along with attendance and drop-out data were used to assign schools accountability ratings with severe repercussions mandated for schools that were placed at the low end of the accountability scale (Texas Education Agency et al.,

Meredith Broussard explains how standardized testing does not prove a child’s general knowledge nor creative in-depth thinking by stating, “Standardized tests are not based on general knowledge... they are based on specific knowledge contained in specific sets of books: the textbooks created by the test makers” (Broussard). Miner also states that standardized testing, “... leads to a dumbed-down curriculum that values rote memorization over in-depth thinking, exacerbates inequities for low-income students and students of color, and undermines true accountability among schools, parents, and community” (Miner). The assessment of a child should encourage a child to want to learn for the sake of learning. Alternative assessments could address a child’s development and learning process. These evaluations can determine why children are more likely to read behind grade level, instead of highlighting their inabilities. Children should focus on creating a coherent voice, not meeting standard. Speech, writing, and reading development aid can be embodied in a series of ways. Furthermore, standardized testing is not the most efficient way to help or understand a

The issue the author presents in chapter nine focuses on who should receive special education services and how should educators identify which students are to receive special education services.

The growing minds of scholars in elementary, middle and high school should be exposed to a more creative system of measuring education. When reflecting on the current state of testing, John Holt states, “And so, in this dull and ugly place, where nobody ever says anything very truthful, where everybody is playing a kind of role, as in a charade, where teachers are no more free to respond honestly to the students than the students are free to respond to the teachers or each other” (E) This reflection on America’s education system represents the controlling and ineffective tactics. Students and teachers have confirmed to an unnatural fruitless environment including standardized testing. This demonstrates the effects of attention away from the needs of an individual. Secondly, on a design for a book about how to prepare kinder gated students for standardized testing, it shows images of pencils, clocks and a slip of paper including four answer bubbles. (C) This perfectly shows the controlling and rigid structure of the timing, the testing and the organization of standardized testing. The boxes of questions lead students into problems and stifles creativity. Lastly, many SAT, ACT, and other standardized tests contain specific questions to study for, forcing a student to think within the guidelines of the tests. These tactics and current states of tAmerican school systems represent the

There are also much better ways to test a student’s capability to learn; a 2006 Center on Education Policy conducted a study and found that a curriculum that follows state standards and uses the test data as feedback led to higher scores than those that prioritized test-taking skills. When teachers are more focused on teaching material rather than test strategies, their students benefit from it (“Do Standardized Tests Show an Accurate View of Students’ Abilities?”). Several alternative methods to state assessments for measuring a student’s academic success include comparing high school graduation rates and the number of dropouts, offering advanced placement courses, and looking at the percentage of the former students that are admitted to colleges. State assessments are more harmful than helpful to students; they are a large cause of test anxiety and a majority of teachers can never fully prepare their students. Although state assessments are an easy way to be able to see the growth of students, that does not mean that they are the best

The United States’ education system sets kids up for failure. This is due to mandatory tests called standardized testing, which attempts to see where a child’s current cognitive abilities lie. However, standardized testing fails to do so, and is a detriment to student education, failing to prepare students for post-education life. These fallacies in the US education system are due to

Although, what the majority may think, standardized testing does not greatly evaluate a student learning growth. Not only does it negatively impact students but it also does not justly evaluate a teacher’s ability to teach their students (Harris 1). The reason the student might not be succeeding could be because of the teacher. Without extra support from a teacher, many student’s would not be able to reach their goals. Colleges do not know about the student’s background or synaro. Columbia University wrote that, “There are many people who simply do not perform well on tests. Many of these students are smart and understand the content, but it doesn’t show on the test. Many students also develop test anxiety which hinders performance” (Pros and Cons of Standardized Testing 1). To only have one way of accumulating test scores is unjust for the students who do not perform well in

Friend and Bursack (2006) note that students should already have some amount of background knowledge before engaging in the scaffolding process to ensure a smooth transition into a new concept. Thus, it is crucial to consider this during lesson planning stages.

In today’s society, especially junior and senior year of high school, everyone is too concerned with standardized testing and standardized testing scores. Professionals are question whether teachers are focused on teaching the subject or teaching the test. According to the article “Teach to the Test?,” Teachers are becoming restrictive to curriculums due to rather educators wanting students to “pass” the test. Teaching to the test can be both good and bad, it is good if curriculums are made correctly that allow students to learn what they are supposed to. Whereas, teaching the test can be equally as bad. If educators focus on test taking skills and testing format; how our students supposed to learn the needed material to “pass the test” (Phelps).

Out of all the issues with American education today, one of the most overvalued yet problematic for students is the grades and scores that represent their classroom proficiency and content knowledge. It is true that today, in the United States, the easiest and seemingly most reliable way to track student performance and rank schools by quality of education is by simply marking students based on their scores on assignments and assessments done in school or on standardized exams designed to measure mastery of content, and by comparing and analyzing the

8 s.2015 entitled “Policy Guidelines on Classroom Assessment for the K to 12 Basic Education Program”, the curriculum has separate standards to compute the mark of students from grades 1 to 10 from grades 11 to 12. The components of which are: written work (WW), performance tasks (PTs), and quarterly assessment (QA). The weight of these components varies from subject to subject. Only having three components and two of them being knowledge-based, it can be assumed that any other skill that does not involve memorizing and reading are not focused on. Outcomes are now more acknowledged, but are only based on the lesson at hand. This shows the limitation the current system has because of their incapability of catering to students who excel in different fields and favors those who are academically inclined and not into other focuses. An artist cannot compete with a scientist because each excel in their own fields. Virtues can be gained alongside with the recognition a student deserves for his/her talents. Having higher grades also means having more opportunities and offering seminars and proposals for future hiring, leaving those who have other talents and skill only performances and

Performance-based assessments share the key characteristic of accurately measuring one or more specific course standards. They are also complex, authentic, process/product-oriented, open-ended, and time-bound. Performance-based assessments have recently experienced a reemergence in education literature and curricula. In the 1990s, performance-based assessments became a valid alternative to traditional multiple-choice tests. In the years that followed, legislative requirements shifted the emphasis to standardized testing, which caused a decline in nontraditional testing methods (Darling-Hammond & Adamson, 2013). Currently, more school districts and universities are seeking authentic measures of student learning, and performance-based assessments