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Post by Ms. English on May 31, 2022 7:14:23 GMT -5
Post your answers to the discussion question here. Make sure to read the responses of those posted before you and respond directly to them when appropriate before posting your own.
Looking further: Research the recent emphasis on standardized testing in public education through initiatives such as No Child Left Behind. What are the arguments for and against the increased use of testing? Do you find one set of arguments more compelling? If so, for what reasons? If not, are there further studies you think need to e done on the issue? Describe them.
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Post by Aliah.W on Jul 24, 2022 14:27:35 GMT -5
Some pros to an initiative like the No Child Left Behind Act is that it helped teachers/ administrators become accountable for student performance, created structure to educational programs nationwide by comparing performance to identify learning gaps, and provided families with disadvantages like learning disabilities, low incomes, and minorities an equal opportunity. In addition to this, student test scores were improved, parents had more information about the best schooling methods for their children, and schools had access to federal funding when developing assessments of basic skills. Some cons to this act were that schools coordinated teachers’ salaries with student performance, students with the best and worst grades were often ignored to teach the core group of students with potential to pass into the next grade, and teacher shortages were created in many communities. Some children who were smart, were not good test takers, and performed poorly on the test. The goal of learning changed to teaching students how to take a test correctly, teachers became involuntarily transferred, and less funding went towards art and music programs, because they went to after school programs and tutoring sessions instead. I agree with the cons side of this argument. Although standardized tests hold people more accountable and give districts a comparison to measure performance with, they don’t take into consideration learning differences kids have when taking tests, and they can’t compare all students equally because everyone displays information they have learned in different ways. Learning has become more of an instruction manual to pass a test than to actually obtain, encode, and retrieve information in the future. I feel that standardized tests put a lot of strain on students to accomplish something by a certain time without actually teaching them how to retain the information that they have learned. Source: vittana.org/19-no-child-left-behind-pros-and-cons
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Question 5
Jul 27, 2022 15:11:48 GMT -5
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Post by Chanks on Jul 27, 2022 15:11:48 GMT -5
The NCLB first had to be recognized as a Law Act that was put in place for grades K-12. On the recognizable side of things, the No Child left Behind Act has gave students and schools in general to increase their testing scores. Having in place tests that show where a student may be allows teachers and administration to hone in on what they need to improve on. It could also be noted for being a boost for Minority/POC students by closing the achievement gaps between White and POC students. “You’ll also be thrown in with all kinds of kids from all kinds of backgrounds….” (pg 350). This relates back to minority students being one of the main goals of standardized testing in the school. For the buried side of things this idea created teacher shortages which relates to how teacheres salaries are entangled with students preformances. “Parking cars was his night job. He had little training in English….” (Pg 347). This relates back to how little teachers are payed and shows what other occupations they obtained due to the fact.Another huge Con to the concept of No Child Left behind is that the grouping of students that dont perform at one of the higher levels in classes are shrugged off. This creates the notion that they’re not going to succeed anyways so why put the effort in. “… : you’re defined by your school as “slow”; you’re placed in a curriculum that isnt designed to liberate you but to occupy you.” (pg 350). This statement out of the story really captures what goes through a students mind when these moments arise. It shows that students are not oblivious to the fact of how certain parts of the school views certain groups of students. The Cons are much more appealing as to why standardize testing shouldn’t be as persistent in school systems. Like Aliah Ward stated in her previous post , all kids and students are different and they’re educational needs are different, I strongly agree. One moment of a mistake could label a student into programs that limit their actual potential and knowledge.
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Post by MVerne on Jul 29, 2022 16:38:19 GMT -5
Some of the arguments that are for the increase of testing include the idea that it helped hold people in charge accountable. If students overall test scores were bad, it would allow for looking into to see if the teacher or other administrators were the cause. Instead of it just being about if a student is a “bad learner” or if it is the kids fault at all. The increase in testing also allowed for setting a structure to the education system. The structure helped everyone learn the same or similar things, and also provided more individualized learning plans. The cons for more testing is that some student’s skills will not be seen under standardized testing. Not everyone is good at testing, so it is not fair to judge a kid nor a teacher off of some students' test scores. Another con is that the emphasis on standardized testing is making the teaching just be about cramming students head full of knowledge based on the tests, and not what actually will help the student in the long run. I side more with the con and the idea that tests do not work for everyone. I can personally agree to that as a student. I struggle with test taking personally, and so it drags down my grade. Even if I am smart and I understand the material, that does not show up on my tests.
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Post by dominickf on Aug 25, 2022 9:42:48 GMT -5
The argument for policies like No Child Left Behind is it tests students to see if teachers could be part of the problem for why a student is doing so badly. These policies can put some of the blame on teachers and make sure that teachers are doing their jobs properly. In addition, it led to parents understanding their child's education better and seeing if students are learning things or not. These policies can also help students have a more individual learning opportunity so that they can learn in a way that would better help them. Some of the arguments against the policies are that teaching becomes just about learning what's on the test and it takes away from the fun lessons that could be learned in the class because teachers are so focused on teaching what they need to learn. Another argument is that tests don't accurately show how smart a student is, some of the smartest learners can be really bad test takers and vice versa which means they aren't accurately shown off by the methods used.
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maya
New Member
Posts: 10
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Post by maya on Aug 31, 2022 21:09:28 GMT -5
The debate on if there should be an increase of standardized testing is extremely funny. Recently, there have been more and more colleges that seek to come forth with the message that they will not deem the worthiness of students based off of their ACT or SAT scores. Along with that, there have been a raise in diagnosing students with many disorders - whether it be ADHD, ADD, Dyslexia, etc. With the raise of these diagnosis', teachers and parents within our recent generations are working with students to be able to accommodate with their testing due to whatever they have that may affect their test taking. When I searched up arguments on if standardized testing should be increased, I saw pros and cons that would cancel each other out. For example, a pro would be "Standardized tests are useful metrics for teacher evaluations.", whilst a con was, "Standardized tests are unfair metrics for teacher evaluations."(https://standardizedtests.procon.org) I think the con side to this argument is compelling due to the fact that there is the ability to cancel out a lot of the pros with the sense that tests overall are not a good way to base off a student.
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Post by Sam Davis on Sept 4, 2022 22:33:42 GMT -5
I can see both sides of the argument. Should the teachers be responsible for the performance of their students? Yes. Now should their whole job depend on it? No. If a kid is not learning since their teacher isn’t doing their job, then the teacher should take responsibility for their lack of work. Then again, if a student isn’t succeeding then that isn’t the teachers fault. The student should be pushed to success by the teacher, yet the teacher is not fully responsible. Another side of this is how the “smartness” is being graded. Students may be terrible at test taking, even if they are incredibly smart. I think there are way too many variables to this equation. More studies would have to be done for this to be a reasonable statement. I would be open to forming an opinion on this matter if all the factors were calculated for. Until then, I have no side.
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