08-21-2004, 07:51 AM
The tension between the legislators and the educators will never entirely go away on the utlity of standardized tests. I took reams of them all through my schooling years. There is plenty of discussion within the educational community on what good testing methods are.
Raising standards and holding people to them is the intent behind some of the state wide testing programs, to include the one in Texas, however, the danger that teachers will "teach to the test" in order to ensure high "success rates" and lay out their lesson plans with too narrow a focus is very real.
The difference between really knowing your stuff, passing a test, testing well, and knowing something well enough to keep on learning about it effectively can be very subtle.
We seem to agree that training and education are interrelated: yes, in the years I spent involved in pilot training, there was a continual budget fight over training skill sets and educating and informing the mental process so that pilots form an innate sound judgement. Pilot error is still a leading cause of mishaps. Some times, you can point to a training flaw, fixable with better task training, some times an education flaw, i.e. the entire community did not know how "x" works or the synergistic effect of "x, y and r" and sometimes failures in judgement are contributed to poor education, not poor training. And sometimes, people just plain screw up.
From what I see, and have seen, in college graduates over the past three decades, to include my peers, is that a focus on specialization in education can easily become job training. Not all bad, but it cheats the student in the long term.
And no, it is not a platitude. Having been up to my arse in the past 2 years in exactly that kind of discussion and budgeting process, I can seriously feel the pain of both the teachers and budgeteers in public schools on this score.
Occhi
Raising standards and holding people to them is the intent behind some of the state wide testing programs, to include the one in Texas, however, the danger that teachers will "teach to the test" in order to ensure high "success rates" and lay out their lesson plans with too narrow a focus is very real.
The difference between really knowing your stuff, passing a test, testing well, and knowing something well enough to keep on learning about it effectively can be very subtle.
We seem to agree that training and education are interrelated: yes, in the years I spent involved in pilot training, there was a continual budget fight over training skill sets and educating and informing the mental process so that pilots form an innate sound judgement. Pilot error is still a leading cause of mishaps. Some times, you can point to a training flaw, fixable with better task training, some times an education flaw, i.e. the entire community did not know how "x" works or the synergistic effect of "x, y and r" and sometimes failures in judgement are contributed to poor education, not poor training. And sometimes, people just plain screw up.
From what I see, and have seen, in college graduates over the past three decades, to include my peers, is that a focus on specialization in education can easily become job training. Not all bad, but it cheats the student in the long term.
And no, it is not a platitude. Having been up to my arse in the past 2 years in exactly that kind of discussion and budgeting process, I can seriously feel the pain of both the teachers and budgeteers in public schools on this score.
Occhi
Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the Men 'O War!
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete