Set Our Teachers FREE!

With all the furor there has been over the amounts of testing taking place in our schools, as a result of NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, teachers and parents are asking whether the tests are really telling us anything. Does frequent mandated testing tell us whether our schools are teaching our children? Is there any learning going on in-between all the testing?

Well, now it’s OFFICIAL:

According to an article in Newsday, too many New York City exams are creating “testing factories”.

“Some New York City students are required to take up to 12 standardized tests a year, said Betsy Gotbaum, the city’s public advocate. “Our schools have turned somewhat into testing factories,” she said, adding that her concern is that too much teaching time is focused on tests rather than other academic material; a city spokesman said the extra tests merely help teachers gauge student progress.”

Well, that city spokesman is parroting a faulty assumption that is at the heart of NCLB, that constant checking with frequent testing will increase accountability and improve learning. What a joke!

Before my husband Don left teaching, he was dismayed at the amount of time that teachers were required to spend just prepping students to take tests.

In his book, “Set Our Teachers FREE! A Plan to Save Public Education”, he shares the arguments he had with administration over helping his remedial students succeed, versus following ineffective programs that allowed no time for student-teacher interactions. “Teaching to the test” was the command, and nothing could be allowed to interfere with test-taking. Needless to say, he wasn’t very popular at teachers’ meetings as he adamently refused to stop teaching and refused to implement only test preparations in his classes.

What no one at that particular school was willing to acknowledge is that Don’s students achieved higher scores on those tests because he taught his students how to learn and use critical thinking skills, rather than parroting back what they’d been spoon-fed. To this day, we meet his former students shopping at WalMart. They are always happy to tell us how their college careers are going. And these were remedial students with behavior problems when they first came to Don’s class.

We are not asking enough of our students and we are not giving them the tools for lifelong success when we “teach to the test”.

We are not giving our good teachers the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, or their professionalism, when they are instructed to “teach to the test”.

From the Newsday article mentioned earlier, there is an important thought that is too often overlooked:

“Any educator could tell that knowing what your students have learned and where they have weaknesses is fundamental to teaching and learning.”

We must refuse to allow our schools to degenerate into “babysitting” or “teaching to the test”.

We must demand that our teachers implement their professional training and spend classroom time teaching children the skills they will need to succeed in real life, not just a test-taking situation. We need to reward good teachers with respect and an adequate income. And we must demand that inferior teachers learn to become excellent educators or leave the teaching profession.

A dear commenter, Mike Sporer, sent me a copy of a wonderful video by Tom Chapin that emphasizes this topic perfectly. I want to share the video with you here, but I also want to direct you to Mike’s admirable blog Fresh Perspectives.com.

Here’s the video by Tom Chapin:

This constant testing is just one more idea that is completing the destruction of learning. Do we want test results or learned students?

Decide and speak up! And check out Mike’s blog at Fresh Perspectives.com.

Brennan

The Kingsland Plan

Save Our Schools

Filed under: Education News