Day: December 8, 2011

Read:

When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids

and

Revealed: School board member who took standardized test

And get back with me. I’ll be playing the Jeopardy Theme…

Back now?

I got hold of a pdf of the “test” this moron with 2 masters degrees (in education, of course) took. His carping (from a summation by his interviewer), “The math section, he said, tests information that most people don’t need when they get out of school,” is typical. Of COURSE most people will never NEED to have at their fingertips the information that there are 360 degrees in a circle and that the hours of a clock face (obviously–duh: 360/12) divide those degrees up into 30-degree chunks. (see pic below) That’s just ONE way to get the correct answer, without guessing, to one of the easy-peasy questions on the maths test. But, as Lovely Daughter pointed out to me in email, such problems as that particular question posed ARE easily answered with very simple reasoning, no math needed.

*sigh*

And so it proved for the entire math test. Indeed, most of those questions that weren’t simple addition, subtraction, multiplication or division (4th grade stuff, at best) HAD THE FORMULAS PROVIDED TO SOLVE THEM! The rest? Any formulas or processes were blatantly obvious to anyone competent in sixth to eighth grade math.

All the unthinking test taker needed to do with such fare would be to plug the data into their (provided) calculator.

Simple, basic reasoning ability and the ability to read simple text and follow directions: that’s ALL the test measured.

His gripe about the math test is that no one he knows needs to know any of that information, so kids shouldn’t be tested on it? Well, they’re not. The test is a math test like a “driver’s test” at a kiddie bumper-car ride is Le Mans. The test is simply a test of whether those taking it can think their way out of a wet paper bag.

And the guy’s gripe about the reading test?

“On the FCAT, they are reading material they didn’t choose. They are given four possible answers and three out of the four are pretty good. One is the best answer but kids don’t get points for only a pretty good answer. They get zero points, the same for the absolute wrong answer…”

Well, duh. It’s a TEST, dumbass! Do employees choose all their reading material at work, or do they have to follow directions? Do people really WANT to read the directions for taking a prescription medication? Is “reading” but not comprehending such material really a Good Thing? OF COURSE reading COMPREHENSION is a survival and success attribute, but this guy thinks kids should only be quizzed on whatever they WANT to read, and that getting wrong answers is just as good as actually understanding the printed word and being able to use information thus transmitted to get correct answers.

This guy’s a perfect example of those things that are wrong with education in America. We’d all be better of if he and his ilk were placed on chain gangs making little rocks out of big ones. For life.

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Note: while I am absolutely convinced that there is ample evidence to assert that “education departments” of colleges and universities are intellectual wastelands largely populated by the least intellectually gifted attending college or university, I also know a number of standout exceptions to that rule. There are good teachers who are bright, capable and hard-working. Unfortunately, I think the evidence is strong that those who combine those characteristics are not the norm in education.

My hat’s off to good teachers everywhere. Sadly, I don’t feel I need tip it all that often.

Continue reading “Tar Him, Feather Him and Give Him a Box of Matches to Play With”