NCLB leaves most of education behind. Teaching to the test is just a polite way of saying "giving the answers before the test", which for the smart students, they figure out they do not have to learn, just regurgitate.

I figured that one out.

College breaks that habit, though. You have to think.

I hate standardized testing...it doesn't promote learning, it just shoves crap in your face for you to memorize. I'm glad I graduated before that stuff really hit hard. It's all teaching for tests now...there's no room for just open discussion and learning about this and that...no, it's a big ass list of stuff that you have to go over and memorize. Blech. Stupid act if ever there was one.



That is retarded. Everyone should know how to make the squiggly symbols we call 'letters' with their own hand. *sigh* I fear for the future.

~Zoo

While NCLB has its inherent flaws, it has brought about a paradigm shift in the thought process of educators, and it is at the very least addressing its namesake. While we’ve been testing students with standardized tests for sometime, there were two groups that were falling through the cracks, students in special education and English language learners. Regular classroom teachers often “referred” or “deferred” these students to other teachers in “specialized” classrooms where these students were supposed to be going to close the achievement gap when in fact the gap widened because these two groups of students were given lower standards, less challenging content, and different expectations from their peers in the “regular” classroom. NCLB deemed this unacceptable and included these two groups into the accountability system thus forcing educators to reconsider their approach to these two groups. Over time, these students have been reintroduced and included in the regular classroom and grade level content with supports, and these students are making gains. I applaud NCLB in its efforts to ensure that no child is left behind and especially these two groups of students as they too will need to be prepared to be productive members of society who contribute to our economy and the tax base so that government programs such as social security can continue to fund themselves (and don’t think for a second that our legislators didn’t have this in mind, for this is one of the “real” founding principles of NCLB, not a “genuine” interest in education from our elderly politicians, most of whom would rather privatize education).

Don't be misled by newpaper headlines. The state mandates the curriculum, the standardized test measures whether the curriculum has been taught. This is not teaching to the test. It is teaching the curriculum.

While there are some who are under such undue pressure to perform (consider that teachers' livelyhoods rests on the performance of 8-year-olds, who for the most part, do not truly care about the test (yes, I realize that some do, but let's be real...is an 8-year-old more interested in taking a test or socializing with peers?...for that matter, that goes for 16-year-olds as well)), and some teachers buckle to the pressure and yield to test-taking strategies, most teachers genuinely want to prepare their children to be successful. Teachers got into the profession to make an impact on children's lives, not to impact standardized test scores.

It is a shame that so much emphasis has been placed on these tests. While some good has come from these requirements, we would be better served by not letting the fate of our children (some of whom must pass these standardized tests (as young as 8-years-old) in order to promote) or the fate of our teachers to rest on two days (or sometimes five) of performance and discount their performance for the other 178 (give or take a few) days of the year. 

SH80:

Good job pointing out both sides of the story. Yes, it's bringing some kids up. But it's also messing with the rest of the children, where it's an all left behind instead of none left behind program. I'm not against the spirit of bringing people up to speed if they speak a second language of have special needs, but I am against holding people back in order to make education 'fair'. Special needs and ESL students should need to work harder, not have the other kids work less in order to slow it up.

I don't disagree with your statement. In reality, often what happens in the classroom is that everyone is brought to the middle. Teachers are trying to pull low-performing students up, which leads to less time to devote to stretching high-performing and average students. There lies the inherent fallacy of the system.

But, you cannot imagine the challenge in today's classroom. We are asking our teachers to teach a lesson that...

• engages students' interests,
• is modified for special population students (i.e. special education students who are mainstreamed and included in the regular classroom lesson and ELL students who do not fully grasp the language but [often] have average or above-average intelligence),
• extends the learning for high-performing and/or gifted students,
• reteaches the lesson to any child who did not fully grasp the concept,
• is graded immediately and provided with feedback, and
• ensures that every student masters the concept before going on to the next,
• etc. (for anything I left out)

And that is just ONE lesson. Teachers teach an average of seven subjects/courses/lessons per day!

Now factor in that discipline and order must be maintained in a classroom that is made up of diverse students (some of whom want to be there and some of whom do not, some of whom want to learn and some of whom do not, some of whom want to listen and some of whom do not, some of whom are fed and some of whom are not, some of whom got enough sleep and some of whom who did not, some of whom who have a safe environment to go home to and some of whom do no, some of whom are emotionally stable and some of whom are not...and I could go on and on and on...)

Most people have NO idea how truly difficult the art of teaching really is today...and because of that fact, we pay them a paltry amount of salary to perform these tasks; we give them a 30-minute lunch break, which really only amounts to about 20; we give them a 45-minute "planning" period to grade, plan lessons, meet with colleagues, administrators, and parents, etc.; and then we are quick to point out any deficiencies, and then we rarely give them praise.

And we wonder why there is a teacher shortage.

Hug a teacher today...I will (my wife is a teacher).