Blogging at Grumpy Old Teacher, Gregory Sampson relates the tale of a district employee who dared to ask why instructional days are being lost for three different tests that all do the same thing. It was a bold move. And it drew an answer.
In essence, the teacher was told that the state did not report data (test results) by benchmark and the district did not allow teachers to review questions with students and analyze why students chose wrong answers; therefore, a third test was needed so teachers could look at the questions, go over them with students, and look at what wrong answer was most often chosen and why it was wrong.
Reread that paragraph carefully. Ha, ha, ha, did a district employee just admit what we always knew?! That state and district tests have little value for the classroom teacher. Their tests tell us nothing except that our schools no longer focus on what students need. It’s about the data. Students are nothing more than dogs running around a track for the bettors and the house who sets the odds so that it always wins.
Once the greyhound no longer can place reliably, the racing/betting industry has no more use for them and is ready to dump them into the street.
We always had a strong intuition that state and district tests were useless, but we never expected someone to admit it.
You can read the full story here.
