Opinions on testing public schools students as a way to measure progress and as an accounting tool are varied, but are these exams working?
Source: Is Testing Students the Answer to America’s Education Woes? – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com
My Comment
“Almost everyone involved in this debate is missing the 800-pound gorilla in the room: universities. I will explain how the gorilla weighs so heavily on k-12, and suggest a way to solve it, but first, here is how I know about him.
I’m a former math professor. I have watched the gorilla stay out of sight during arguments about education; except to wring it’s hands about the poor quality of k-12 education (it has wrought upon us), and beat it’s chest claiming it can help; while all the time fattening itself off of our trust in him.
Here is how he interferes.
If teachers could teach well there wouldn’t be much of a problem, but they can’t – because of college. That’s where they are supposed to learn content – especially high school teachers. But many don’t; for two big reasons. Either their school doesn’t teach them because it treats students as “consumers”; or their professors don’t know their subject. Really. Here is how that happens.
An “elite” school gets a multi-million dollar “national-need” grant to produce Ph.D.s. Lots of faux-Ph.D.’s are also produced. Many go on to be professors at state schools that produce teachers.
All of this is documented and described on my blog inside-higher-ed , so here is just one example. A “professor” told me that, after five years, he could now tell when the homework was wrong, but not always why!
We could fix this by anonymously testing “teachers” on content, but releasing the results by “college”. Details are on my blog.”
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