This is TAKS week here in the Texas schools. As a 10th grader, I take four tests this year. Some years we take two and other years three or four, but this is the big year that determines how well our school does compared to other schools. For us as students, every year matters because certain classes are open or closed for the following year depending on whether we pass or fail the tests. But for the school, 10th grade test scores are the ones that decide how well the whole school does. Some schools can even close if their scores are still low.
The Texas Education Agency has told the Austin school district that it needs to use the word “probable” — not “possible” — when referring to the closure of Johnston High School, district officials said.
The shift in verbiage was made at the suggestion of state officials who are part of Johnston’s oversight team because they wanted to underscore the urgency of the situation at the school in East Austin.
Agency officials have said the school, which has received “unacceptable” ratings for the past four years, will be closed or put under alternative management if it fails to achieve an acceptable rating this year.
Under the state’s accountability system, schools are rated “academically unacceptable” if they don’t meet target graduation rates and goals on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.
Are we being deliberately undereducated or miseducated? Is our whole generation being purposefully denied essential elements of a meaningful education as a byproduct of spending all of our schooling preparing for tests? Is that an accident?
Here’s the disturbing part. The bureaucrats don’t care if WE improve individually from year to year. They don’t care if our CLASS improves. They only care that we do better than last year’s 10th grade, even if they were a bunch of idiots or a bunch of screw-ups or a bunch of genii. By extension, BETTER doesn’t mean that our average is higher than last year’s class. It means that a larger percent of white kids pass (70%) than last year; a larger percent of black kids, a larger percent of immigrants, a larger percent of girls, a larger percent of poor kids, a larger percent of left-handed kids, and a larger percent of soccer players who only eat ice cream for breakfast.
This means that kids like me who get 90% or 99% every time only spend a THIRD of our school time learning how to answer the test questions and regurgitate essays. The poor kids, meanwhile, who got ONLY 60%-80% spend ALL their time on nothing but test practice. Kids in honors or pre-AP or advanced classes learn some other material and get interesting projects from time to time, like in-class debates, short story assignments and geometry construction projects, but the kids in academic or regular classes have every single test look like a TAKS question. That is not an exaggeration.
Last year, my test scores were all above 92%. I could go down by 10 points in every single subject and no one would care. If I went down 20 points, my brother would wring my neck and I’d probably have to drop some honors classes and possibly lose the chance for AP US History, but the state and the government STILL wouldn’t care. I would be within acceptable parameters.
Our school would still show improvement even if every single kid in honors right now dropped to 71% as long as one kid whose older sibling failed last year passed this year. That’s crazy!
Clearly they don’t care whether we as individuals pass as long as the scenario I have presented makes my high school look good. What’s the point? Could it be that the point really is to dumb down yet another generation; to keep us from learning about the Constitution and our rights. Only in understanding them both may we learn when our republic is at its BEST.
April 27, 2008 at 10:07 pm
I seem to recall a certain faux Texan asking, “Is our children learning?” That may be why he thinks tests are so important.
April 27, 2008 at 10:38 pm
The modern day school system derives from a perceived need in the mid to late 19th century for a working force that would be well enough educated for the work, but compliant to a class system. I think you’re observing echoes of that original system at work here, because the kids doing less well, will be forced into ever more rote learning and compliancy molds instead of actual creative learning.
In any case, it’s a huge problem, and as long as we’re basing things on tests in this crazy way, will only get worse.
Think about one aspect of what you said — each year has to be better relative to last year.
How long will that occur for any given school? You can’t improve indefinitely. At some point the scores will be the same as that of last years…
The sooner we get rid of this in the school system the better. But I’m afraid the full extent of necessary overhauls to the nation’s school system won’t happen for a long time, if ever…just fiddles and tweaks at the margins…
April 27, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Cassie, I have been aware of this problem for more than ten years. The differences between today’s curricula and the schools I attended in the sixties is so vast as to be unrecognizable, especially the Civics and History classes. This did not just happen on its own, it is deliberate policy. Tell everyone you can about this crisis, because nothing will change until a whole lot of people figure out this policy.
You’re right, you are being shortchanged. The wealthy and the corporate/government combine, which is rightly called fascism, does not want an educated population, one that might actually think for themselves and realize that this police state wants unquestioning drones, not educated and curious citizens. Congratulations on seeing through the facade at so young an age, and keep on questioning authority.
seamus
April 28, 2008 at 12:05 am
To those who would say that there is no value to “rote” learning, I say “hooey!”
There are some things for which there is no replacement to rote. That one and one is two is not subject to debate, nor philosophical debate as to some underlying bigotry of “one” versus the other “one.”
“Mother” is spelled “mother,” and not “m’athre.”
This is the fundament of the hard-wiring of the human brain.
Such is also easily quantifiable.
Classical education, however, strikes a balance between the rote memorization of the “primary” years and the increasing development of the young mind via the addition of the liberal arts over time.
Does anyone find it odd that this nation somehow managed to find its freedom WITHOUT standardized testing; that, for instance, unlettered men such as Lincoln and Clemens redefined American with little more education than the rote memorization than was the de minimis standard of the day?
Do we not cheat the genius of the extraordinary, every day, work-a-day American, when we make the most base assumptions about her, i.e. that we may quantify her intelligence based upon broad-spectrum statistcs? Are not such pathetic guesses a capitulation to those who would all along sell America’s genius short?
Well said, Cassie!
April 28, 2008 at 8:00 am
What is so appalling to me is the utter arbitrariness of the whole thing, from what is going to be on the tests to how school “acceptabability” is calculated, to what teachers are forced to teach, ad nauseam. And what makes 10th grade students a more accurate measure of acceptability than, say 11th grade students?
Back in my day I do remember achievement tests, but they were few and far between, and different teachers were free to teach similar classes in different ways, as long as the same general material was taught; i.e., certain things were supposed to be taught in Algebra 1-2, certain things in English 7-8, certain things in US History 5-6, certain things in Biology 3-4, etc. (the numbers corresponded to the particular semester in high school, 1-2 being freshman, 3-4 sophomore, etc.) The English department established a curriculum, the French department established a curriculum, the Social Studies department established a curriculum, etc., etc. I surely remember studying for a Constitution test, but it was a school-wide test, not a state-administered one. It was FUN and I actually LEARNED something. The teachers had a lot more freedom to teach within a certain curriculum, whether the students were college prep or general ed students. AND WE HAD PHYSICAL EDUCATION MANDATORY. I also don’t remember schools being arbitrarily closed for the reasons you go into.
I went to high school in the late 1950s, and I do not recall anything even CLOSE to this crazy situation. Yes, there were slow students, and some teachers were doubtful in their ability to teach, but as a whole I was pretty satisfied with the education I got in grades 9-12, without yearly achievement tests necessary to judge how my school was doing.
On what basis do the bureaucrats determine what is to be taught, anyway? Who says THEY know what is best to be taught and how to teach it?
To me this is an appalling situation, one that is going to take a great deal of effort to turn around.
Cassie, have you or other gifted students like you–or ANYBODY, for that matter–proposed a realistic SOLUTION to this problem? Do we just need an Administration change, elimination of TAKS and other similar systems across the nation, or just what?
April 28, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Steve, of course my brother would not wring my neck! I was just showing that I might have consequences at home but the school and the state would not care.
April 28, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Hi Freckles, I stopped by just to see who it was that comment on one of my post and here you are. From what I read is that you’re doing great in school and I’m sure that all the rest there has the same chance as you to do well. I’m 67 years old and never had a new school or computers when I was in school so I think the children today are really lucky to have so much to use.
Keep up the good work!
April 28, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Per your command on FDL, I am here even though I am not a single person.
I remember high school (class of 72) as getting in the way of my education. You’ve got to realize that the schools are set for the middle and about one standard deviation on either side. Even AP and honors classes substitute more homework for more education.
I scored in the 99th percentile on my SATs and graduated on the third quarter of my class.
Of course, things were different back then. We were mired in a deeply unpopular war, there was a crimminal Republican president, racial equality was still only a dream… Hey, wait a minute!
April 28, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Is this part of no child left behind?
Teachers only teach what is on the tests.
No wonder more people opt not to go into the teaching profession.
No creativity in teaching. Maybe this is the reason there is a high rate of drop outs?
To close down a school because of test scores, huh?
May 1, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Cassie, This is why we are all really proud and psyched for you for getting yourself accepted for into educational experiences. Smart kids must not let the system get in their way.
May 1, 2008 at 4:18 pm
[...] Freckles Cassie has a great and very snarky post up this week about how her whole generation is being miseducated due to the standardized testing that’s come to [...]
July 8, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Cassie,
Such is the problem with standardized measurement of education.
I was thrilled to see my then 6 year old learning about clouds in 1st Grade. Until I discovered that the single earth science question on the 3rd standardized test was on … wait for it … clouds. Yep, they start teaching to the test a whole two years early to keep our scores up. As you know, it just gets worse.
There has always been testing, but the reliance on it has grown to the point that it is no longer manageable by sane and rational educators.
And I suspect you are correct in seeing a malevolent hand in the dumbing down of our youth. The egalitarian aspects of superior public education run counter to the current trends of economic stratification. Prosecutors and law enforcement hate coincidences. So too should any economic social analysis.