Reflections on Class 2

Standarized testing!

Everyone's favorite topic. In reality it is a subject that is near and dear to me. I got into education as because of standardized tests.  Back in 2008 I took the GRE and scored extremely well and while I did not get into the graduate programs I was hoping for, (Philosophy grad school is immensely competitive) I did manage to get a job at Kaplan tutoring and teaching the GRE and the ACT.  Using this experience I was able to land a job a Austin-East High School as a Mathematics Teacher Assistant.  After six months of working in this capacity the administration asked me to take the Mathematics Praxis Exam over the summer. If I passed, they might have a job waiting for me.  My knack for test taking came in handy again, I scored very well on the test and was hired. During my 2 years of teaching I felt the sting of End of Course tests (EOCs) on an almost daily basis. The classes I taught which had an EOC were hectic, stressful, compressed, formulaic and boring. The classes I taught that did not have an EOC were fun, creative, interesting and interactive.  I am not alone in this opinion. This is not to say that standardized tests should be completely eliminated from schools.  There needs to be a way to hold students, teachers and schools accountable.  However, I'm not sure standardized tests are way to do it. And I'm completely sure that the current form of most EOCs is not the way to do it. I'm not as familiar with other subjects but I will briefly describe what happens in an EOC math class.  The problems are mulitiple choice and many of them can be solved by plugging answer choices in the calculator.  There are graphing problems - calculator.  There are table and chart problems - calculator. There are linear regressions - calculator. There are imaginary numbers - calculator.

You get my drift.

The terrible thing in all this is that students come out knowing how to manipulate a calculator but not actual math. Perhaps there could be a calculator section of the test (calculators are very useful tools and mastering them is important) and a non-calculator section of the test. This would force teachers to actually teach math and students to actually learn it. Perhaps there could be critical thinking problems that aren't multiple choice.  I realize this creates grading problems but if it was a minority of the test I believe it could work.

I understand that I did more complaining than solving but I wanted everyone, particularly math teachers, to realize what they are getting into and to open the discussion for possible solutions.