The following is my exceptionally perceptive and intelligent daughters mental vomit. It will give you hope if you have doubt about the ability of todays youth to critically analyze and form astute opinions of their culture and how society operates. Or. if you comprehend what she is saying about the system of education, it may make you feel as if all hope is lost. I never knew that the people who ran the ACT and the SAT were rivals. Its weird to think that whatever makes these companies the most money will be determining whether or not I can further my education. I mean, if more schools buy the test with older testing standards (ie penalized guesses, vocabulary that nobody will use, less of a science/history base) then they will make that sort of test, despite what is the best way to determine college success. Test-takers, you are the consumer in this situation. As a consumer, you have power to change things. Don’t settle, don’t just buy what everyone else is buying. Take the time to find what we really want, and buy THAT. If you don’t like something, don’t buy it. This isn’t like voting. Every purchase you make counts. Without you, businesses are nothing. Back to the main point, this just adds onto the belief I already have that standardized testing is being improperly used. I think the idea of standardized testing is great! “ Let’s have a generalization of how our schools are doing! It looks like Lacey’s math scores are low. Lacey, see what you can do to improve that. Central’s English is low. Central, maybe you should put some more emphasis on that. Pitman’s math scores are extraordinary! Pitman, what are you doing? We want to try something similar so that we can better educate our students.” However, I don’t think that the execution of these tests is working very well. For the past ten years, I’ve been learning “test taking tips” specifically to make me do better on standardized tests. I’ve learned that if you use large words, you can be saying something really stupid but it’ll sound pretty, so it’s ok. Also, it’s ok if you don’t know an answer, just guess! I’ve gotten through school on the fact that I can quickly and logically see what a tester wants from a test taker, and give it to them. I got into Advanced Math because I did well on a test, while kids that I know that were great and still are great at math didn’t quite make it because of one test. Now I’m in Pre-Calc (two years ahead of the norm) while they’re stuck in Algebra 2 (one year ahead of the norm). All thanks to one standardized test taken in fourth grade. Standardized tests should not test children individually! Just because Susie did poorly on her NJASK, should Susie be placed into a lower class next year? Who cares if Billy only got proficient on the Biology Test? Should he be placed in the College Prep class next year even though he’s ace-ing his Honors Biology course? No! Susie was sick that day, but was told that it was a mandatory day to be at school, so she came in with the flu, and couldn’t think clearly (not to mention the other kids she infected coming to school sick, but that’s another rant). Billy’s alarm didn’t go off that morning, causing him to almost miss the bus, and so Billy wasn’t really mentally ready for that test. Now, those are only two of the millions of possible variables that a student him/herself create that could alter the test. Let’s talk about the preparations for the actual test. Mrs. Smith thinks that the XYZ standardized test is the best thing since sliced bread. She loves right now how the test works! Mrs. Smith finds a way to incorporate XYZ suggested preparation into every one of her lessons, pushing the children’s mind into that XYZ state of mind and making sure they stay right in the center of that lane, always thinking that stupid things will be good if you describe them with words like abstemious and voracious and that guessing is ok if a problem takes too long. Mr. Doe, however, hates the XYZ test. He thinks that standardized tests are stupid and a waste of time. Mr. Doe only does the required amount of XYZ preparation, cramming the way of thinking into his students’ little brains in the few days before the test begins. Mr. Doe prefers to teach things like how to have wise ideas, and how to be persistent enough to solve a tough problem. Mr. Doe’s teaching methods aren’t exactly the XYZ way. So now Joe, who can vomit a dictionary and is an exceptional guesser, got a perfect score while Jill, who wrote in an unorthodox way and spent maybe a little too much time on a hard math problem, barely got a proficient score. The XYZ test says that Joe is golden while Jill needs extra help time to get her scores up to par. Mrs. Smith gets a raise and Mr. Doe has to go to XYZ workshops. There are just too many variables when you look at each child individually. Yeah, it’s great that the SATs are trying to make their scores more realistic, but standardized tests should never hold such a great influence over one’s education. They can be useful to determine how well one school might be doing in comparison, but by judging each child individually, you make something that shouldn’t be important a major part of a child’s life and can completely mess up their future. Kinda just vomited my ideas on here. Sorry. If you want, I can make it more realistic-sounding by making up ridiculous statistics to make my point sound better. And 99.99% of the students in my school agree with me on this view! (did I get into Honors English yet?)
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 08:25:01 +0000
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