Resolved Question

An alternative to standardized testing...?

I have met very, very few people who are in favor of standardized testing. My colleagues and I HATE the two weeks of the year that our kids spend locked in the classrooms for 4 hours a day taking multiple choice tests. Also, English, math, reading, and science teachers have the great fortune of being forced to "teach to the test" so the kids pass, and spend at least a month of the school year just doing that. We all hate it... but is there any other alternative to make sure kids are meeting national and state standards?
Posted 4 months ago
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Ooh, that's a hard one.

From what I understand, no-one, teachers, parents or kids, want to do all these tests, so maybe instead teachers having to teach kids just what they need to do for the tests, teaching should become much less formal and stressed.

Teachers should be allowed to do what they want, providing they meet the curriculum of their country, but they should also teach in a variety of ways. Most businesses, especially where training is involved, are aware of the four main types of learning (trying to remember them - active, pragmatic, theorotical and reflection) and this surely does not just relate to adults.

I believe if teachers were able to teach the subject they love with passion, the children would benefit immensly.

And why should children be tested so rigourously? I don't understand that, all it is going to do is make kids who are not as bright feel like failures. Surely just by teaching them with passion, and incorporating all learning styles, will give our kids a more rounded education, and possibly a love for a subject they wouldn't have had before.
Posted 4 months ago

Other 5 Answers to An alternative to standardized testing...?


Posted Jul 8th, 2009 at 6:16PM
Replace multiple choice tests by interviews and a series of short tests to target weak and strong points.
Not very economical, but might just motivate the kids better.
But I'm the last one you should ask.
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Posted Jul 8th, 2009 at 8:15PM
What worries me terribly about these tests are the so called "league tables" that are developed from them . . . ie. which schools are "better" than others. What a load of CR*P!!

As if the only thing making a difference to the quality of a school was the actual teaching!! If that was TRUE, I would have no problem with league tables because I approve of accountability.

But SO many things influence these results - and labelling schools "good" or "bad" does not benefit the pupils, their families or society in general IMHO.
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Posted Jul 8th, 2009 at 3:36PM
Ugh... I agree there should be an alternative but I don't know what it could be. And I hated getting taught for the test, but I know that's the way it had to be.
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Posted Jul 8th, 2009 at 4:03PM
I am a 2nd grade teacher, and even at such a young grade I am forced to teach to this test that my students won't have for another year. The best alternative to the test is to evaluate the test itself. Many students are failing because the questions are far above their level of thinking and understanding. If testing must take place we need to have high expectations, but that doesn't mean we can't have reachable expectations.
Personally, I think testing should be done away with completely.
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Posted Jul 8th, 2009 at 4:48PM
I think that GPA is more accuret. SAT scores only show 10% of how well a kid will do in college. And they were created to show how well the kid would do. Sometimes you get bad teachers though (I had some who threatened to fail me just because they didn't like me.) So there should be individual subject tests perhaps (like the SATII) but ones that aren't multiple choice maybe. Because some kids are just really good at taking tests. There may be no other way though.
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