Quote:
Standardized tests are there to protect students' education, not hurt it. You need some kind of outcome to measure, some kind of accountability. Otherwise, school districts could totally screw their students and blame it on something like the neighborhood.
|
I agree that standardized tests need to be used as benchmarks for the schools themselves. The problem comes from when the government assumes that good standardized test scores = learning, then puts funding at stake for schools who happen to do poorly on those tests. Standardized test scores are nothing but a measure of how well you've beaten kids over the head with the test information. One standardized test score tells us nothing about learning just like one IQ test score isn't the exclusive measure of intelligence, nor does it measure your full potentional.
Quote:
Are you suggesting that it is impossible to develop standard methods to teach groups children? Because if that is the case, our educational system is entirely screwed. We'll have to get a teacher for each student.
|
Yes, a good teacher does not stand up and teach for one type of student and if children do not understand material a good teacher will figure out what exactly will make the connection for the kid and the material. There are as many different learning styles as there are children in a classroom.
As for my comment on responsibility of teachers, it makes more sense in the context of my original post. I was trying to make the point that the parents have to take some responsibility, and that environmental factors do play a part in learning. Mainly I would like to see more responsibility placed on the kids themselves. If they do poorly on a test and you look and see that they are D students with poor work ethic who don't even try do succeed in school they should be held reponsible; compared to a kid who tries his best and comes in after class to get help but truly cannot understand the material because it is being taught poorly.