Test Taking Strategies!

I thought I would give the students a treat today by showing them a Princeton Review Test Taking Strategy dvd—they told me they would rather read silently. They were not nearly as excited to crack the state assessments as I was.

Meanwhile, there was the strong aroma of marijuana outside my door this morning. Apparently, the high of learning isn’t enough for them.

We were told at a meeting that there were twenty percent of our ninth graders that were failing their classes. Considering most of the students are testing below basic in the state scores, this seemed quite low to me. But in education, is the rally cry of “No Child Left Behind!” Yet, statistics show that only twenty percent of students attend college, six percent grad school. As we looked at the data, the question, “Does our teaching even matter?” occurred to us.

On the other hand, I am a terrible test taker. If my intelligence was measure by standardized tests, my education would be doomed. Yet, I tested gifted as a child after my kindergarten teacher didn’t recommend me for the gifted program and my mother went down to the school, insisting I be tested. Where would I be today without my parent advocate?

In order to succeed at a system such as the model we have for testing and education, one has to buy into the system. A major systemic problem is that the students don’t buy into these tests, the teachers don’t buy into these tests, and the politicians have interests other than society’s well-being invested in such testing.

Bush had stock in Open Court, the system of books he mandated for elementary schools. In the name of education, some people became rich while others are still in need of light bulbs and toilet tissue.