Current Connection 3

The reading for this week was: The testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better. This reading is written by Daniel Koretz. This week’s reading focused on how test preparation in schools impacts students’ education. The reading talked about standardized testing which is defined as any form of test that requires all test takers to answer the same questions, or a selections of questions from a common bank of questions, in the same way, and that it is scored in a “standard” or consistent manner, which makes it possible to compare the relative performance on individual students or groups of students. The way a student prepares for a standardized test is guided by the teacher and school, but this does not guarantee how a student will process what they’re preparing for. The author of this article, Daniel Koretz has done a lot of research on education; assessment and testing policy. He discussed an issue in teaching and testing that should  be a concern: preparing students for tests corrupts instruction and invites cheating. He reasoned that some teachers “teach to the test” even at the expense of true instruction; others use tests to “learn what to teach” and testing and test construction are often just not done well.  He suggested taking a “test-accountability” approach in that testing is used to help the teacher determine strengths and weaknesses in teaching and help the teacher determine what type of teaching and testing were needed. Overall, he suggested teachers pay closer attention to the relationship between instruction and testing because they are mutually influential. 

There are three types of bad test prep: Reallocation between subjects, reallocation within subjects, and coaching. Reallocation between subjects is when teachers cut back on instruction in untested subjects, so they tend to only prepare their students for what subjects will be on the test. This leaves students without important knowledge that they should be learning but they aren’t because their teachers left it out due to the test. This also leads to an imbalance in what they learn, for example, students will be stronger in math but not in other subjects that aren’t on the test.. Reallocation within subjects is when teachers cut back instruction on content within a subject that is not emphasized by a test. These students will lack important content that is in the curriculum. These students haven’t learned a lot in many areas of a subject to make more time for the content that will be tested on. The last type of bad test prep is coaching, this is when teachers focus on how content is tested and do that exact thing. These teachers will only teach details that are particular to the test rather than the content to support good test scores. This includes the process of elimination, plugging in which usually is seen in math, and memorizing instead of learning the information. 

Another major part of the reading is the discussion on when does test prep become cheating? Most individuals do not believe that test prep is cheating. But the majority of people consider cheating to be when individuals change answers, or share answers on the test. When teachers omit material they know is important for their students’ success so they are misleading individuals’ test scores. If a teacher teaches students to look for something on the test rather than actually knowing the content then they will not remember it after the test. Also many teachers do not fully understand testing, and are just wanting to see their students succeed. In test practice problems, the questions often help the students to know what to expect on the test but not in real world situations. This reading is developed by starting with what test prep is and then he went on to talking about the three types of bad test prep. Another major part of the reading is when does test prep become cheating? Koretz discussed this question and gave her opinion on the question. The reading ended with the discussion of corrupting the idea of good teaching. The point of view for this reading is Koretz researched this topic and wrote down what she found about this topic. 

I found an article titled: New York Joins Movement to Abandon Use of Student Tests in Teacher Evaluations. This article was written by Eliza Shapiro on February 1st, 2019. Four years ago, Governor Andrew Cuomo pushed a plan to put New York at the forefront of a national movement to reshape American public education: he vowed that half of a teachers rating would be determined by student results on standardized exams. This immediately resulted in resistance from teachers’ unions and parents. They protested that this would add undue stress on teachers and children. As a result of all of the protests the evaluation system was suspended only months after it had been put in place. Local school districts and teachers unions in New York will now officially be allowed to decide together how educators should be evaluated, with some oversight from the state education departments, and no requirement that standardized tests must play a role. The state of New York is now fighting for other states to abandon the use of student tests in teacher evaluations. This article relates to the reading because Koretz discusses the issue of if standardized testing is prepared so poorly because the teachers are evaluated based on their students’ results on the tests. If these standardized tests did not affect a teachers evaluation then they may actually prepare their students the correct way instead of just making sure that they get the best score possible. 

Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/nyregion/standardized-testing-teachers-students.html

Weekly Reading:  Koretz, D. (2017). The testing charade: pretending to make schools better. Chapter 7, Test Prep. pp. 93-118. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press.