Test like the rest of the world–where it works fine.
I was on the Colorado State Board of Education when we started the statewide testing (CSAP) in Colorado. I helped create it modeled after Europe and Asia where rigorous state and national exams have driven their much higher quality (and less costly) public education systems.
However, our structural corrupt governance system (teacher union controlled local boards and legislatures) caused our national implementation to be very flawed.
In Europe and elsewhere the teachers never see the tests, do not administer them, and cannot teach to test items. They must teach to the much broader standards, as I thought we would when we started outcome based education and testing. However, our political bureaucracy allowed teachers to administer tests, teach to test items, and in hundreds of cases cheat on the tests themselves.
Hundreds of teachers and principals are under criminal indictment or conviction for either helping students cheat on state exams, or just taking the completed exams and changing the answers.
In other countries state employees, not in education, come in, administer the tests and leave with them. Teachers cannot dumb down education by teaching to the tests, or cheating.
We need national high level standards, with high stakes testing done in a manner to avoid the negatives discussed above. Of course I do not think that we can change this unless we take away the assembly line auto worker type teacher labor contracts, and the scam of getting the public to think that we have public school boards, when in reality they are elected and controlled by the unions. Truth in advertising should label them, “employee school boards”.
see articles that I and others have written on all of these, some at www.edlyell.com
“Former elected member of Colorado State Board of Education (D), and former member of State Community College Board. Still a Professor of Business and Economics.
This post was submitted by Ed Lyell.
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I absolutely agree! For the first time, I see sense!
Let me take this opportunity to make a comment about teaching. We must understand how students think. See “Teaching and Helping Students Think and Do Better” on amazon.