"Mick Brookes, NAHT general secretary, said: "The current system has resulted in thousands of children moving to the next phase with misleading information about their ability. It has also led quite unjustifiably, to schools and their communities being labelled as 'failing' with the consequence of damaging recruitment of head teachers and worsening their working environment" (BBC, 2010). The schools are concerned that the tests do not accurately portray what the children are learning and feel that the children spend their primary years preparing for tests. "The Sats tests are taken each year by about 600,000 pupils in England and the results are used for the annual primary school league tables. In previous years, pupils have taken tests in English, maths and science - but the test for science has been removed. The Schools Minister rejected the criticisms of the tests" (BBC, 2010). He goes on to talk about how they have been working with the teaching organziations to explain to them that drilling with practice exams is wrong and that if the teachers have been teaching the curriculum all year the children should have no issues with the tests. The issues of achievement testing is not just a US issue as I have shown here as teachers in England are having the same battle. To test or not to test...that is the question.
Reference
BBC News. (2010, January, 26). Sats boycott ballot for teachers in England. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8479426.stm
Berger, K. S. (2009). The developing person through childhood (5th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Amy I enjoyed reading your blog. I agree teachers are teaching the test and the children are not learning. I think we should assess children to see where their strengths and weaknesses are and help develop those areas. All children learn differently and at different pace. For example, my daughter has a hard time with addition and subtraction but multiplication and division she flies through and yes I am frustrated at times but I know she will get it eventually.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHello Amy, great post. When I moved to Texas I was unaware of testing and they focus on it just to receive a grant for the government if the students pass. Unfortunately I was in one of those districts when I first moved here. It is not good when a teacher only teaches the state assessments. This district only offered tutoring if the student didn’t pass the pre-state assessment. After realizing the negative way of teaching, I had to do research and I have found a wonderful new school district. Six years in this district, I am lucky to have teachers that really teach children and have their best interest at heart. It is a shame and hopefully this will be corrected soon.
ReplyDeleteAmy,
ReplyDeleteI don't think these test should be used to determine how well the children are learning and how well the teachers are teaching. I agree, test don't really measure how well a child is learning, because some children don't test well. Our school just finished taking the CRCT test last week, and the teachers and principals put so much emphasis on the importance of the test to the children that the children get test anxiety from the stress and drilling preparing for the test. So therefore, the test are not really measuring how much the child has learned.