Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Less Testing, More Learning in Montgomery County?

A town hall meeting Less Testing, More Learning on Nov. 4, 2015 brought together teachers, students and parents concerned about the negative effects of standardized testing on student well-being, instruction and teachers in Montgomery County. The participants voiced concerns about lost instructional time, problems with the technology roll-out, negative impact on student self-esteem, student data privacy and the collection of invasive demographic data during testing:
http://www.steinershow.org/podcasts/community-event/town-hall-meeting-less-testing-more-learning/

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7 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 11, 2015 at 1:57 PM

    The only reason MCPS got rid of final exams is because more the 80% of students failed various semester finals in subjects like Algebra, Geometry, etc. Adding 15 points didn't do it... so MCPS just eliminated the exams... PROBLEM SOLVED!

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    1. AnonymousNovember 12, 2015 at 12:52 PM

      In other words, if you cannot meet the goal just eliminate the goalpost!

      Delete
  2. ChrisNovember 13, 2015 at 11:30 AM

    I hate more talk of this "self esteem" crap. Time to put on the big boy and girl pants and deal. Talk about NOT preparing kids for college. Life is filled with big tests. Especially COLLEGE. Better get used to it.

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    1. AnonymousNovember 13, 2015 at 2:27 PM

      One thing people lean in COLLEGE is that far from being "c***", self-esteem correlates with one's ability to perform and succeed in college and on the job - see: http://www.education.com/reference/article/self-esteem2/#B
      http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED093522

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  3. CrunchyMamaNovember 13, 2015 at 12:34 PM

    Since I graduated college, I've had pretty much ZERO "big tests." Where are they all? Driver's licensing wasn't particularly "big;" what else is there? Those who take the GRE/LSAT/similar are already the kids who'd do well on them.

    Can we justify millions of dollars to Pearson and 10-20 hours of testing alone from grade 3 onward (from K onward if you count MAP testing) because *college* has tests? Semester exams aren't the only tests out there, but PARCC we can't get out of, except to replace it with some other big expensive time-consuming test. This goes way beyond "self-esteem."

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  4. AnonymousNovember 13, 2015 at 1:49 PM

    Not including MCPS semester final exams, isn't one reason for a lot of standardized testing federal mandates that dictate the tests in order for school systems to receive federal funding?

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    1. CrunchyMamaNovember 13, 2015 at 2:23 PM

      That's more or less why PARCC is now a permanent fixture, yes. It's meant to "Close the Gap" by showing us where the shortcomings are. It also hasn't actually closed the gap, mind you - but the mandate for annual testing of every child every year in grades 3-8 remains, and it's looking like PARCC will now also provide the new high school final exams for a number of math/ELA classes and be required for graduation.

      Delete

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