If a student doesnt pass it, do you think they should be able to get their diploma?
Knowing my smartness, I easily passed. I see people who complain about how they shouldn't be judged on one test, but the test is so easy a caveman can pass! They must be in re ed, exceptions to those who don't speak english and can't pass the english part of the test.
What do ya'll spurstalk homies think?
Well, if it is one of the exams you study for all year long, then yeah, I think the diploma shouldn't be handed out if you fail. That's really the entire reason behind it. If you don't pass, you obviously have learned and fail as a High School student.
No pass, no walk. It's part of the problem with society today. People cry that everyone should have everything handed to them.
What kind of a message does it send to HSers as far as the rest of their lives go when you are saying 'well, even though you flunked this test we've been getting you ready for all year, we'll let you graduate because we don't want to hurt your feelings.'
Time for the pussification of America to stop.
It's a huge debate and a very emotional topic, at least in Texas. I only had to take the TAAS test and still felt the stress of it. However, now with the TAKS (or is it TEEKS?) where you have to pass all he subjects to graduate it's so stressful. On top of that, the teachers "teach to the test" with no leeway to teach to their own liking. While I was training to teach bible study a few weeks ago we talked about different styles of learning and how these tests only test a few types of learning styles, mainly the verbal and mathametic types of learners, not the independent, musical, or intra-relational learners. That's where the argument for these types of tests for everyone falls flat, in my opinion, Not everyone learns in the same style and cannot prosper, educationally.
That being said, a rule is a rule, and if it is there it shouls be followed. I remember a while back there was a segment on WAOI about a girl in Natalia that was able to graduate because they changed the rule about walking the stage after the handbook had been past out. That's a fair excuse, but if the handbook says you have to pass the test o graduate you have to pass the test...no matter how many times it takes you to pass it. No matter how hard it is. Even if I don't like the rules. You're a student, and if you don't follow the rules you should be punished.
I hate teaching to a test, though, and so many places that is what it has turned into. These tests are supposed to be MINIMUM standards but they have basically become the entire curriculum.
Sorry, I just don't buy the whole learning styles argument.
When a kid graduates high school, they should be able to write a sentence with a subject and a verb. They should know that we have a moon for planet Earth. They should know and be able to list the three legislative branches. They should be able to write a coherent summary of a couple of paragraphs, add 2+2, etc.
If they don't, they aren't going to make it very far in life. *shrugs*
I'd love to see better noun-pronoun agreement as well.
To go along with the Executive and the Judicial branches?
I don't know that the way to ensure that kids are learning all that they should in public schools lies in standardized testing. Standardized tests tend to set minimums that many are happy to achieve without any concern for seeking maximums. I think a major problem with public education now is that many educators make passing those tests -- i.e., achieving those minimums -- the end-all and be-all of teaching. That's terribly problematic, I think. Kids are tought that there is always a single answer to every question, but life has a way of quickly demonstrating that success is frequently found by ignoring that notion and finding new and unique solutions. That requires critical thought, which is frequently discouraged by standardized testing.
While I think that students should demonstrate a simple modi of acquired knowledge and skills before graduating, I'm generally opposed to any belief that a standardized test demonstrates that achievement.
I don't buy the "teaching to the test" because good school districts don't use that as an excuse. I have 3 kids and soon to be 4 kids in the public school system. I have heard some teachers complain about having to teach to the test but my kids have had some wonderful teachers who don't. There is still room for creativity. I have two good friends, one moved to Dallas from California two years ago and is a public school teacher. She loves the Taks because she came from a state where there was no accountability. I have another friend who lived in Oklahoma and just recently moved to Florida. She was appalled at how little her child was learning in her school district, absolutely no science and again, no accountability.
I think today's taks requires higher critical thinking.
Google "Gardner Multiple Learning Styles." Different styles doesn't mean they don't learn the same things, it just means they learn them in different ways.
What are the three legislative branches?
I know the legislative branch consists of congress which has two chambers(House and Senate), but I dont know of the three legislative branches.
The teachers get alot of stress as well because they get pressure if not enough students are passing these tests. My Dad is a teacher and feels the heat every year around test time. He teaches special ed and some these students are still required to take and pass the test. Imagine trying to teach some kids that, when they cant even answer simple questions.
Yeah, I meant to say the two legislative branches (House, Senate) and three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial). I was in the middle of a phone call when typing that
That's a good point and one that I can agree with you on. I guess I just see too many folks out in the real world who can't balance a check book, don't understand how financing works when working on a big purchase, that kind of thing that I feel the math is important.
I worked at BB while in college, and I lost track of the number of times someone would come in looking to buy a computer or TV and you'd be there for 30 minutes trying to explain to them how financing worked. Just imagine if they were in a situation with a dishonest salesman (like buying a car)...
And in the real world, basic communication is very important. Sometimes I just shake my head when receiving correspondence from clients, some of whom are elected officials, that don't know what a paragraph is or how to put more than one of them in a letter. Or that will write emails that are so damn confusing that you have to call them and get them to decipher it for you, that kind of thing.
I work with employees of clients who can barely read and write that have HS diplomas. These are all things I feel that you should be able to do when you graduate HS.
Students in high school need to be given more real life classes.
"How to manage your finances."
Instead of horse classes like the History of 18th century art.
Give me a break.
Everyone is required to take a semester of something like that to graduate. That stuff isn't on the tests, though. It seems to me that they think students should be able to figure that out if they can draw and translate a probabala without any problems.
Call me pessimistic or elitist, but I don't believe that more than a third of the population will ever be capable of critical thought.
I know. I wasn't trying to rip on you, but I thought that I couldn't resist the opportunity . . . . It's not often that anyone catches you in something like that; I had to do it.Yeah, I meant to say the two legislative branches (House, Senate) and three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial). I was in the middle of a phone call when typing that
Undoubtedly, there is some balance that is necessary between learning basic life skills and indulging in higher cognitive efforts. I don't dispute that there is room for both teaching basics and for doing better than that. I would argue, in part at least, that part of the reason that there are such problems in our society stems from the fact that our public education system encourages the graduation of more rather than less students and that frequently causes the graduation of kids who don't have a clue about much of anything. Short of some sort of punitive measures taken against those who choose not to value an education, I'm not sure what can truly be done about it. Even mandating the passage of standardized tests won't ensure that graduates have actually learned anything; kids that don't want to learn or who don't value education will leave school whether they graduate or not and whether they've passed TAKS or not.
Frankly, I think that standardized testing has lead to a general dumbing down of our society. Like Extra Stout, I suppose that might make me sound elitist (or actually make me an elitist) but if I have a 1 in 4 chance of getting an answer right and I need only reach a relatively low threshold score to pass the test, I stand a fighting chance to pass without learning much. I also think that standardized testing tends to encourage short-term retention of knowledge (basically from rote) rather than mandating that students learn how to work through problems with critical thought to find a solution that isn't one among 4 choices. It's part and parcel of the system we've created. What bothers me about it is that it seems that educators, executives, and legislators all seem to think that the solution to the problem is more standardized testing. I maintain that standardized testing, while occasionally useful, is basically a significant root of the problem.
I'm with you, FromWayDowntown.
How about we teach the students Algebra,History, and Science and make such an emphasis on teaching those courses and passing them at the end of a semester. Standardized tests are STUPID and it hurts the state of Texas. The state is 50th in the nation in dropout rates. That is unacceptable. It was sad seeing how far advance kids on the East Coast was compared to the kids here in Texas. Most Texas kids do not learn what matrices are until the 11th grade when they are taught that in Algebra 2. But kids in Maryland and New York are taught matrices in the 9th grade. The work they showed us would embarass Texans. The reason is because they make an emphasis on the courses, not a test.
In Texas, they are too busy teaching kids the TAAS in the middle of Algebra or Geometry class. If you failed the TAAS in middle school, you can't take Algebra, you have to take TAAS Math. It's stupid. Then they wonder why kids do not perform at a high level on the TASP. Well that's because most kids had the TAAS now the TAKS thrown down their throats and can't perform all the work that is require to have a decent score on the TASP.
It's a touchy feeling for me because I always thought it was unfair how administered a test to students that even teachers had a hard time passing. All states have standardized tests though. But the Northeast does not put an emphasis on them like the South does.
That and don't forget the always obvious fixer.What bothers me about it is that it seems that educators, executives, and legislators all seem to think that the solution to the problem is more standardized testing. I maintain that standardized testing, while occasionally useful, is basically a significant root of the problem.
"Throw more money at it"
I don't blame the state for at least trying to hold their schools to a certain standard. I blame the parents that don't stress life education enough in the home. Turn off the TV and go teach your kid how to do something. Make them get a part-time job so at least they understand the value of a dollar. Take away the cell phone and talk about the state of the world.
Otherwise, you're going to have a 23-year old sloth on your couch eating Cheetos in five years after high school that just got fired from Red Lobster. And your immigrant neighbor's kid is sitting for the CPA exam.
Call me cynical, but I think a public school system that crafts young people into cognitive engines is an impossible dream for all but the most well-prepared and brightest students today.
The reality is an imploded social fabric wherein the majority of students lack the stable home environment, much less the discipline, to learn even rote knowledge, and where many educators and administrators are more interested in just collecting a paycheck, or reaping the benefits of patronage, than being educators, whether that be because they are doing it for the wrong reasons, or because they are numbed by the reality that the children they are tasked to teach are already too far gone.
The purpose of standardized testing is to provide some minimum line across which to drag these poorly-prepared students, through a highly structured environment with lots of feedback to identify and provide additional resources to low performers, and then to provide some objective means of accountability as to how well schools are accomplishing that. The downside is that everyone gets lumped into this scheme, even the high performers, whose creativity and freedom of thought can get stifled, and who can readily get bored.
The only way to start to implement what you suggest, without incurring widespread failure so much as to get out of high school among the socioeconomic lower half of the country, would be to ins ute a two-tiered education system like some other countries have.
For the time being, that remains politically untenable, but given the stark contrast between the legend of the American Dream, and the reality of hardening socioeconomic stratification in this country, that could change. Right now, everyone holds onto the ideal that everyone should have an equal chance to become a brain surgeon, but it's getting to the point where a lot of people will be happy just for their kids to get the skills necessary for any kind of decent job.
That may be your position and you're en led to your opinion. But it's not just the parents fault. There's no single cause and parents can't be completely held responsible, either. That's just plain ignorant to say that. My parents took my little sister out of public school because of these tests. She's not watching tv every day and she's looking for a job as we speak. True, some children do need some more parental involvement in their lives and it saddens me to think they don't know where Iraq is and who George W. Bush is, but some adults don't know that stuff either. And that goes back to thinking critically and what ES said. There are schools for a reason, to teach. Parents can't do everything, even if they think they can.
You're way off base. Are you trying to tell me that parents aren't completely responsible for their children's education in the same paragraph that stated that your own family yanked your sister out of school?
Over an achievement test?
They're your kids. If you want smart offspring, teach them. If you want to rely on the Texas public school system, then you get what you get. Isn't that where the home schooling movement came from? There's no reason that learning should stop when the bell rings at 3:30.
I never said learning should stop at 3:30 or whenever school ends. I was just staing that it's not at the hands of the parents all the time, and that probably wasn't clear. Sorry about that. That's why there are schools.
And as for the parents being in charge of the child's education, my parents have the ability to take her out of school and to work with her and for her to achieve in a different way. For other children who struggle with testing and pressures, such as children in poverty or those who have parents who can't be at home with their children (my mother stays at home), they have to deal with the Texas school system and all that comes along with it (funding, testing, teaching, apathetic teaching, etc.)
Last edited by ashbeeigh; 06-09-2007 at 01:59 PM.
This is what I have a real problem with. Going back to the pussification of America that I and a few others here have been preaching. When you take these kids and tell them that they are struggling and then put them in a different invironment (an easier invironment) to help them find some success you enable these kids. You teach them that adapting and overcoming can be avoided by simply changing the scenery.
Its like a video game. You just drop it down to "novice" or "rookie" rather than finding a way to get good enough to beat "all-star" or "superstar". You effectively become a talented loser or underachiever and its somehow warped into false success by rewarding our youth for being successful on the lower levels rather than pushing their mediocrity into something better.
I just really feel like our society is bent on making provisions for the smallest of weaknesses. I'm not saying "suck it up" to everyone but at some point we can't just sit back and roll out the red carpet for everyone, we're breeding failure by doing that.
With all that said I don't believe the standardized test are valuable. When you have honor role students not graduate because of TAKS there is clearly some kind of teaching flaw in the system. I'm really sick of seeing this. Its needs to be more of a ulative assestment done over the 4 years.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
