Via a comment on this post, I came across an interesting blog that I hadn't seen before. The topic is k-12 education reform, something close to my heart since both my parents were high school teachers, my Mom for her whole career, and my Dad while he was in the Peace Corps[*].

I came out of an education system with high stakes testing, so I'm fairly comfortable with it. It seems to me that some sort of testing is necessary in order to measure teaching effectiveness. The stakes for the student should not be all-or-nothing, though. The ideal is testing that measures school performance, but which constitutes only a part of the student's grade. The teacher and school should be assessed on aggregate test scores across all students, presumably with some cross comparison with other schools in similar circumstances (since it doesn't make sense to compare inner city schools to suburban magnet schools, for example). The process of actually measuring school performance isn't simple, but it is necessary to have some sort of feedback mechanism that focuses teacher and administrator attention on a meaningful performance metric.

Testing is a bit of a fad these days, which is a mixed blessing. At least some testing schemes are stupid and destructive (all or nothing tests that track students into the smart kids track or the regular track, for example). The diversity of schemes being tried suggests that at least some will work, and hopefully the good ones will be adopted by other states and school districts. In the meantime some of the kids being experimented on will suffer needlessly thanks to political stupidity, but the alternative is kids suffering due to political neglect, so it's not obviously a losing proposition.

Anyway, go dig around the site a bit. Even if you don't have kids, you are directly affected by this.

[*] incidentally, IMO the Peace Corps is probably the best investment in foreign relations that the US has ever made. High level bladiblahblah doesn't last longer than the leadership of the foreign countries being engaged. Massive aid projects line the pockets of corrupt bureaucrats. Actual US citizens interacting one-on-one with local people and materially improving their lives spreads American ideals into the grassroots, and inoculates at least some people against rabid anti-Americanism in a way that lasts long after the volunteer has gone home.

Some schools have I think gone a little to far with the finals testing putting a pass or fail on the entire year based on the passing of the final as if the remainder of the year did not count.
On a note of continuing education into Space related fields or at Nasa. The Public Service Of NH power company's insert that accompanied the billing include a note on scholarships.
http://www.psnh.com/commonutils/common/content/psnh/athome062004.pdf

I have taught math in Texas which is one of the states at the forefront of testing. It works well in schools and districts that have highly competent teachers, interested parents and motivated, students i.e. for those who least need to be tested.

For districts and schools where the above is not true, and this represents a significant plurality, testing is a disaster. The children emerging from this regime are idiots. The teachers, with underperforming kids from underperforming families are under intense pressure to get the kids to perform. This leads even the most competent teachers to teach the test and little else.

The real problem begins here as adverse selection starts to occur. The competent teachers, growing tired of the pressure and the meddling move on to "better" schools with "better" kids, leaving less competent teachers behind to fortify the downward spiral.

If you are taught nothing but how to take a test, you shall never have time to digest and learn concepts. If you don't learn the concepts you can't possibly do applications. That pretty much makes you an idiot.

In summary, testing works best for those who don't need it and worst for those who do.

Now some would disagree with this assertion and if that's the case then let's keep on testing. But my experience is that it is true. If it's true then rational minds would have to agree that the best solution would be to toss out the whole testing regime before things get any worse.

Jardinero - I understand your objection, and I certainly don't support testing for testing's sake. Well done testing would take into account the history of a given school and schools which are comparable along whatever variables turn out to be important. The test also needs to be well designed, so that teaching to the test isn't necessarily a bad thing. If the test is an accurate measurement of the desired knowledge, then teaching to it isn't a bad thing.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Texas implementation of testing was done without thinking it through, but maybe that's just my bias showing.

I fully agree with Andrew. If teaching to the test is different from teaching to the material, the test is poorly designed. I think the solution is to have less predictable test formats. The SAT is particularly bad in that respect. There are very few question types (analogies, reading comprehension, etc) and they always appear in approximately the same proportions. That allows students to prepare for the test format instead of the material. I think the reason most tests are so predictable is that it benefits the students who study the most, and those students are usually the ones who care the most about the results and complain the most when they don't the test format. There is a perception that predictable formats are more fair, but I don't think that's justified.

I guess there were a few things I didn't point out. The purpose of a test, any test, is to evaluate someone's or something's performance. That's how it started in Texas a decade ago. "oh well, we are going to do this test just to see how everyone's doing, no problem." But there is a huge gap between what something does in theory and in practice. In Texas and other states where the tests have been implemented the practice has been grossly distorted from the theory.

The tests becomes the driver of the curriculum instead of a tool to make sure it's being followed. It is used as a criterion for student promotion, teacher evaluations and comparisons of school performance. So, if a topic comes up, no matter how interesting or useful, if it's not on the test, it isn't taught. It stifles the whole learning process.

Andrew, you use the words "desired knowledge". This raises a whole different issue which I will touch on. Who should decide what is the "desired knowledge"? The child, the parent, the teacher, or some commissar at your state education agency? This is the other problem with testing: the loss of local control over the "public schools". What if your state education agency decides that creationism is a topic for the science test which is required for promotion? Should the teachers block out time to teach it? Should your kid waste his time listening? Should he have to answer questions about such crapp the way the state mandates he should answer? What recourse do you have?

Big question for folks. Does anyone know of surveys on the current literacy rates in the US. Ie, the number of people who can read and write? I've seen claims that the rates were just below 80% (in 1992) while other reports just assume the rate is 99%. Meanwhile the CIA claims 97% (from 1979!) in its "World Factbook".

Tests are needed to ensure accountability in public sector schools. Privatization would be better of course. Anti-discrimination laws make it hard for businesses to test applicants, so schools have to test graduates.

And by the way, the Marines are the best investment in foreign relations the US has ever made.