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http://flfcat.blogspot.com/2009/03/definition-of-controversy.html

If anyone can slog through this good luck. But this is what we are up against in this “enlightened” state. And every year those of us who are actually teaching anything have our teaching disrupted or ruined by the FOOLS who developed this standardized testing.

People who teach in the classroom are directly affected. Good classroom teachers have to stop teaching in order to cram for these insane tests. One of my closest friends retired a year early to keep from havin a near mental breakdown because of this insanity.

Those of us NOT in the public school system are hit sidewise, in this manner. Every year as my piano students are tortured in school with these tests in school, almost all learning stops in my lessons because of insane cramming for these useless tests. Why?

Because these kids are told that passing these tests is EVERYTHING, and they believe it, the are so scared, so tense and eventually so exhausted that really DO have NO time for anything else than preparing to fill in bubbles on a test that is basically modeled after the testing theories of a good century go.

It is insane. The only good thing about it, for me, is that we can all celebrate when the insanity is over.

You don't have to take it. More parents should keep their kids home.

http://unitedoptout.com/another-successful-fcat-opt-out/

http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2012/12/24/whos-required-to-take-the-fcat/

I don't think standardized tests will ever go away. It's a double-edged sword. I can see the benefits and the problems. I used to teach at a low-performing school, and I was actually paid extra $$$ to teach a bunch of kids after school just to cram for the CAHSEE, which is the California High School Exit Exam. It was an interesting class.

As it goes in public education, since it's public, it's one huge compromise. In California, scores from standardized tests mean so much, from school rankings to property values within the district.

All that testing really hasn't affected my piano studio, though, as these tests are usually REALLY easy for kids who take piano lessons. Even the worst piano student (the absolute worst student I've had in ten years) is deemed "proficient" by the standardized tests.

These tests may be poorly designed and implemented. However, standardized tests an sich are not the problem. Many nations that absolutely run circles around America's pitiful public school performance have used for decades and decades and continue to use NATIONAL standardized testing to this day.

For example, your scores when you are 13 will determine if you are going to a pre-Research University High School, a Pre-Community College High School, a pre-Vocational School High School or a lower High School in many countries. Yet, schools and teachers don't " teach to the exam ", rather the entire curricula are designed around teaching what has to be learned. If you have really learned it, you will be able to pass the exams. Those students that have the aptitude, capacity and who put in the work move up, those who don't, don't. Yet graduation rates are much, much higher than those in the US. Gifted students aren't held back and are doing work that would be considered undergraduate university work in the US while students with less academic aptitude receive an education where they can become responsible, educated citizens and be trained in a craft or vocation.

Don't blame the tests. Blame the inequality, the widespread childhood poverty, the broken culture, the parents both forced to work to make ends meet, the dysfunctional school districts paid from property taxes & run by school boards that want to teach that science doesn't work. Blame an average family watching a minimum of 5 hours of television per day and then sitting prone in front of video games and electronic devices, eating to the point of morbid obesity sugary, fat commercial crud. Blame anti-intellectualism, rampant materialism. Blame the fact that the virtue of learning is absent from the vocabulary. Blame the "get rich quick", "easy answers", "no work required", "entitlement" culture of expecting to cram for a test at the last minute instead of learning the material over a period of years and being able to apply it.

But don't blame the tests. Don't shoot the messenger.

China was successful thousands of years before America existed and will likely be very successful for thousands of years after America has disappeared. One reason is linking learning with morality. David Brooks has some interesting things to say today which shed light on why the Asian (and Jewish) approach to learning will likely beat the American approach to (avoiding) learning in the long run.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/opinion/brooks-the-learning-virtues.html?hp

I know exactly what Gary is talking about. In this area especially, these kids are running ragged doing all these AP courses and having to take these tests. You can say that they choose the AP courses, but the problem is they are so pressured into doing everything they can to compete for the best colleges. The stress that these children have to deal with at being great at everything and how extremely busy their lives are is sad. And yet, America is falling behind other countries in academics. I think that is partially true due to the standardized tests interrupting a well-thought-out lesson plan for the semester.

edited to add: I think the problem with frequent testing is similar to issues with performing too much as a music student. When you are performing and preparing for performances, you are no longer learning. You are simply perfecting the performance. You really can't be learning new repertoire and getting a better technique while preparing for a performance. When you aren't performing then you have the freedom to learn new things without being under pressure of a deadline or other distractions. I think it is the same for academic learning & testing.

I looked up David Brooks. He is a journalist, and his education includes studies in history. I see no background in education, either in training as an educator, nor experience teaching. I would not take him as a resource on the subject.

Very good point.



But isn't it about the art of balancing the two? Imagine a student keeps learning a lot but never very good at any thing?

100 years ago 50% of Americans were educated, to 5th grade level. It was an agricultural society and that was plenty. Children were need for farm labor so they could only go to school in winter, between harvest and planting.

50 years ago it was an industrial society and high school was necessary.

Now it's an information economy. More and more complex education is needed.

But we still take the kids out of school between planting and harvest as if they were going to work on the farm, something most of them have never seen.

It's time for year around school.

The pressure on high schoolers to take as many AP classes as possible is insane. I have lost several 11th graders who decide to spend so much time studying that they claim to not have any time left over for piano. Unfortunately, in more than one case, the reason actually was due to spending too much time playing video games in addition to studying. I really hate the video game obsession. I know there are probably forum members who undoubtedly enjoy them, but I see video games as huge time wasters for young kids. Piano drops down their list of priorities once this obsession takes over. (just venting!)

I was hoping you would "weigh in". You are seeing what I am seeing. I think you have to live in South Florida to understand what we are up against here. I won't say more because I believe it is pointless.

I never spent one minute studying for any test in school except for music courses. That is the truth. And I didn't actually study in the normal sense in music. I worked my **s off, but I enjoyed doing it.

I suspect a lot of intelligent kids do the same thing today. I kept myself off the radar, and when teacher A was talking about something I already understood, I quietly did homework for teacher B. I never cracked a book at home. Never.

I don't recommend this, because the results can be lethal if a student, aiming for success in music, needs later on to change course. But I also don't think I was the only person to "roll the dice". I decided by age eight that I wanted to be a player, a musician, and that was my goal. It makes sense to do the minimum in everything else in order to attain that goal. It did to me. So I kept a B average or so, a little higher, got SAT scores that were "good enough" then set my only priority as excelling in auditions.

If I had spent more time studying, either my playing would have suffered or I would have had to give up everything I enjoyed as a teen. My attitude gave me all the time I need to practice AND all the time I needed to do other "teen things".

Many decades later, when I ask my students about "facts" or "knowledge" that I picked up in non-musical areas, things that were merely of interest to me, they do not know what I know. This includes science, math, history, languages, many other things.

In addition, most other people my age (64) report studying hard to get "good grades" in countless classes yet retain zero or nearly zero of what they supposedly learned.

My conclusion continues to be that most of what is "crammed" into people's heads in schools is lost, because it never got past "barely beyond short-term memory".

So I tell my students that most of what they do in school is just a game. It is a deadly serious game, because later grade point averages and degrees will be considered before what they actualy know (which no one will bother figuring out), and there are rewards for those grades.

I got to skip most of the insanity because I chose what I was studying, I chose to work hard, and I chose to learn things for a lifetime, not to learn to pass the next text - whether it had bubbles or not.

Before my daughter was in her current program, the only time she learned in leaps and bounds was during the summer. She could read what she wanted, think, draw and play. Her return to school - scores were always 2 grade levels ahead of where she ended the school year.

Less time needs to be done taking tests and more experiences need to happen.

Even in an excellent program, she still has her biggest cognitive jumps during the summer.

We are lucky I suppose that she doesn't miss any questions on her state tests...but I think it's more that we watch little tv and heavy library and users and we find lots to do for free in our community (free museum days, free outdoor concerts, parks etc).

If there was "more school" we would reach the point where we home school (not easy - I work, but she would be old enough to self moderate).

Are you smarter than a 5th grader?
No one would remember everything, different people pay attention to different details.



The point is not to remember everything or anything you learned for the rest of your life. The point is to go through the learning process. People will forget what they learned over time if they don't need to use those knowledge.

However, the learning experiences will help them for the life long learning ahead of them, which is required by many of today's jobs. Regardless if they remember anything from their high school chemistry class or not, the chance is, the ones that did well in high school, do well later on in their careers.



Actually I can't agree more with you on this. It is a game, and it is a deadly serious game. It is a game to horn your learning abilities.

And once again you are correct. No one care what you have actually learned, or what you know after the course, let alone if you remember anything 10 year later.

But everyone cares about your grade, which is a reflection of how well you can learn, or how well you have learned.

My point is not that testing/performing is bad, but that for someone who is just learning, you can't always be performing because your learning progress will come to a screeching halt. So you have to have times when you perform, and times when you learn. I think the same applies to the FCAT. These kids are tested so often that the learning portion is condensed.

I think we are on agreement that there should be a balance between practice, playing and performance, also study, fun and test.

I am curious how often is the FCAT Test?

In British Columbia, we have similar thing call FSA (Foundation Skill Assessment). Students take it at grade 4 and grade 7, and teachers union campaigns furiously against it each and every year.

Since I moved to FL last year, this is all new to me. I think it's once a year, every year, grades 3-12.

I don't live in B.C. so I was not aware of this. Do you know what kinds of concerns the educators in your province have about this testing? What harm do they see to education, for example? I looked it up and went through several of the grade 4 reading tests, and I was concerned by what I saw.

The union has many arguments but none of them related to the content of the test.

The union doesn't want any standardized test for students under grade 10, period.

Exactly. Cramming has nothing to do with learning and growing, it has to do with gaming.

Well,the point being made was one of long time history comparing cultural attitudes and philosophy towards learning, wasn't it?

The anti-intellectual tendency towards ad hominem and ignoring uncomfortable observations is a deep set cultural trait in many Western nations.