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Re: standardized tests are to blame
Posted:
Jun 3, 2000 10:42 AM
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Does it surprise anyone that teachers resort to "drill and practice?"
Our society is currently obsessed with student performance on
standardized tests. Some teachers get paid based on their
standardized test scores, and many would like to see this practice
expanded. Most standardized tests are timed.
Our district pilotedInvestigations this year and adopted it for next year. Most of the
upper grade teachers are in a panic because we see no place where
students have to sit down and do "math problems" quickly. What
happens when the students sit down to do their MAT tests, which have
55 problems in 50 minutes - an average of less than one minute per
problem?
If we continue to judge student and school performanceprimarily by scores on timed standardized tests, teachers will never
give up the drill and practice mode. Over and over, educators remind
parents, business leaders, politicians, etc., that standardized tests
are only a small part of the picture, and many things affect
performance. But our pleas for sanity continue to fall on deaf ears.
Therefore, teachers feel that we are not meetings students' needs
unless we give them the tools they need to perform well on a timed
test.
Until society's obsession with this kind of quantitativeassessment ends, there will continue to be resistance to a curriculum
like Investigations.
On Wed May 19 10:08:00 1999, Sherry Rosenbergwrote Re. Help! Teachers feel pressure to drill: >I teach in Ventura
Unified School District in California and we are >using Investigations
district-wide. With the California Standards and >the push for
raising Standardized Test Scores, 3rd-5th grade teachers >are taking
out their old Silver-Burdett books and drilling. I have >aligned the
standards with Investigations and am giving workshops like >crazy,
hoping to remotivate our teachers to enrich and empower their
>students mathematically using Investigations. Some success...some
>failure....I would like to know how things are going in other
>districts. Thank you :). > >
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