UPDATE: The text of the quoted letter below has been changed and resubmitted due to insight gathered in post comments. The original letter text is here.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s an article by Jay Mathews of The Washington Post that appeared in the February 24, 2006, Times Union. He makes the case better than I can… I guess that’s why he does what he does and I do what I do.
I’m getting rather fond of this “letter to the editor” thing. I just fired another volley to the Albany Times Union in response to this letter regarding charter schools and their perilous emphasis on standardized testing. The author described the “demoralizing” effect standards have on teachers and the horrific result - a failure “to provide fully enriched learning experience”, whatever that means.
I must take exception to Samantha Sleasman’s letter to the editor in The January 2nd’s Times Union regarding charter schools. Her assertion that charter schools, and their standardized testing, can be “demoralizing” to teachers and fail to “provide a fully enriched learning experience” is laughable at best, and derelict at its most potent. Too often we hear about educators being coerced into “teaching to the test” by the unyielding gods of standards-based education. I think it’s pretty simple, really. The tests are based on the curriculum. The curriculum is what is supposed to be taught. So, if the teachers aren’t “teaching the test” then what on Earth are they teaching? Teaching the curriculum is their job.
This notion of a “fully enriched learning experience” is subjective, rhetorical nonsense. If this “enriched learning experience” doesn’t promote the students’ retention of the class material, then I would humbly suggest it is not enriched at all. I knew some teachers in school who were great at both stimulating my learning while making the experience enriched, and when it was time for me to answer the test questions I was well prepared. I know some teachers today in the Capital District who have done this wonderfully for years, and the children in our area are better for it.
A more likely reason that standardized testing is scorned by some educators is accountability. Standards allow for a normalized measurement of a child’s education, which then allows for the accountability of school districts who are not good stewards of the taxpayers’ money. Poor teachers should be held accountable for not performing to the standards required of them… and, in kind, excellent teachers should be suitably compensated for their superior contributions. Without standards-based education it’d be much easier for a lousy teacher to continue to slide by and for an excellent one to be inadequately rewarded.
Now let me say that there is a danger that education officials could make the required standards fantastically unrealistic and put teachers in an impossible situation. Indeed, I’m told this may be the case now. I know that most teachers work hard at a job filled with irate parents (who have their attorneys on speed-dial) and out-of-control problem kids. Let’s fix the real problems and allow the standards to do what they were made to do. Charter schools, and their standards-based education, are a benefit, and a little healthy competition is better than a monopoly.
Now as a disclaimer of sorts (and I really don’t need to say this), I have many good friends who are teachers… and I’ve always known (most of) them to work hard and teach well, because, frankly, they like teaching. As such I see standards-based education as having another benefit, to allow the good teachers to stand out and be recognized for their super-ordinate contributions to their schools.
Web designer and developer. Loud discerner. Software engineer and 
hmmmm…
The real issue is that the standards that the state has set up are generally lousy. There are so many things that are vitally useful to a rich educational experience and therefore relevance to society and culture (reasoning, logic, literature, art, etc.) that are never measured adequately by standardized tests. Particularly reasoning and logic - I took these in high school and college and am always still appalled by the general lack of the ability to actually “think” and “reason” in the population at large. Or how about grammar and spelling? That’s included in these standardized tests, and always has been, but look how lousy the results.
There were lots of things that I got to study in junior high and high school that most people don’t - like Latin - that have helped me far more than anything I ever had to learn for a standardized test.
The system . . . is broken.
Broken … indeed
Alissa, are all your variable names in Latin?
I’m fully behind the “the system is broken” movement. And perhaps the standardized tests are not ideal. But I’m going to have to disagree on the utility of the material that is included in standardized tests. Now, I only know about New York’s Regents curriculum… But I think the tests were attempting to test valuable material. They had English, history, math, science… All the basics. Because people have not learned material, I don’t see how that proves that tests themselves are a bad idea.
I think having a standard bar to aim for is a good thing. Enrichment things like art and music are great, and even the little high school Steve and I went to had a smattering of both. But for most people, those things are not going to make one lick of difference in you succeeding in the rest of your life. I suppose history or advanced alegebra probably won’t in most cases, either. This is a subject I could rant and ramble on for eons.
I managed to graduate from high school without Regents.
And I turned out fine!
In all reality, most of the things we learn in school past the eighth grade . . . or at least tenth . . . don’t have anything to do with “succeeding” in life, if by succeeding you mean surviving! That’s why we have compulsory attendance laws.
Human nature is to aim for the bare minimum. And therein lies the tragedy.
Honestly, I think the Europeans have a good system of secondary education going.
I used to be a male prostitute… destitute… lying naked in a gutter… until I got my New York Regents diploma… and now I can shoot fireballs from my eyes… and bolts of lightning from my arse. Oops… sorry, got my educational background mixed up with my testimony.
Besides the Regents there are, of course, the SATs and the ACTs… and the advanced placement tests. During school we took the New York State tests almost every year, and we took the Iowa tests a couple times, too. Most of these had stuff on them that I still use all the time (basic math, reading, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, bull-fighting, astro-physics, etc.). Even the Regents with history and foreign language had some solid stuff (you can tell by how some people vote how very little they remember their history).
Dang, Alissa, how do you keep track of all those Latin global variables!?
While standards-based education is a good mechanism for measuring, I’m sure the “system” has found a way to screw it up. I bet BA could expound more on that. Actually, now that we drag him in 
…how standards affect subjects like music is something I know nearly nothing about. I don’t remember ever taking a standardized music exam, except maybe NYSSMA solos, if they count.
I just read both articles and couldn’t agree more with your point of view. With now having a daughter in kindergarten, I’d say I would be very disappointed if she doesn’t start taking standardized tests in a few years.
Alright… here I go…my humble opinion…
Standards are fine, but when you raise the bar and amount of material that a fourth grader must know to the level of the seventh or eighth grader then you defeat he purpose of education which, if I am correct, which is not very often is to RETAIN information for use later on in life. I challenge any twenty or thirtysomething to take an eighth grade assessment exam and pass it knowing what YOU knew in eighth grade Our children are being forced to grow up too fast in too many ways and when they fail it is the teachers fault not the parents. The teachers feel so much pressure to have the students succeed because if the students fail this apparently is a direct correlation with the teaching skills of the instructor. Yes we are teaching to the test because the amount of information these students are forced to learn to pass these new assessments is overwhelming. There is no time left for creativity or even fun in learning. Hey Ken, I am not sure if I read a hint of sarcasm in your comment but fear not, state assessments start in fourth grade and from then on those scores wil determine your daughters success in school according to the school. Its all a numbers game and if you havent already guessed I am a memeber of teaching profession and I am pleased to tell all of you that my job does not end in June but rather in May. This is because of the almighty assessments that have been implemented which I am required to proctor with the rest of the teachers. We have practice exams and practice for the practice exams so that the kids will score the big NUMBERS! And just food for thought, the people who create these assessment exams rarely step foot in a classroom but rather sit in their offices down in State Ed. Makes complete sense to me how about y’all?
Hear, hear! (Now I know who the elusive BA is!)
In my years at private school, I took the Stanford Achievement Tests every year. During the homeschool years, I took the California Achievement Tests. My brother and I both had intensely lopsided scores (for instance, 99th percentile in everything except “addition of whole numbers”). We pretty much discounted the whole thing. Your actual grade in a course was a much more interesting representation of your ability to succeed, particularly in more quantifiable subjects like math.
You and I both know that the SATs don’t test anything except your ability to take tests - why else would they have classes on how to “beat” the test? And why would intensely intelligent kids And the scary thing is, it works. Never having had to take the ACTs (because I went to an East Coast college), I can’t speak for those, and not the APs either. I did take the GREs, though, and they are exactly the same as the SATs except the vocabulary portion is ridiculous.
Ahhh… the smell of reality. Thanks, BA!
I had failed to capture how much the suits in State Ed can muddle things up. In light of what I have heard, I have re-written and re-submitted my letter to the editor. The newly formed text has cooled to a solid form and takes shape in this blog entry as we speak. (the old one is linked for info)
If given the space I would have written much more that targeted some seemingly more fundamental problems, but I already nearly doubled what the TU standards are for letter length, and I was trying to really counter the original person’s letter… oh well.
alissa :: I can see what you mean to an extent. I know that on the SATs if you don’t know the vocabulary word being asked you are left to guess… and if you do know it, great. If you only know the word because it was on a list of words to study for the SATs, then great again. That list of words could be called a curriculum.
And the classes on how to “beat” the SATs are pretty much snake oil.
I never took the ACTs either, nor the GREs. I have no time for these tests.
I agree that the bar has been raised. WarAxe and I played for a half day in Kindergarten and went home. Now my daughter attends a full day, is beginning to read, and is learning many more things than I did when I was her age. Bravo to those that have raised the bar. Why shouldn’t an eighth grader know more than we did in eighth grade. (I’m 31) I took both the SATs and the ACTs. I can’t remember what I got on them, but I do remember that my score was basically what I had expected I would be able to achieve. As far as I’m concerned neither test was very useful for anything other than my own knowledge. Same with the Iowa tests WarAxe referred to. There wasn’t any big surprises to me on how well I performed. They do let you know where you are at and if you need to try harder. Yes, it also helps in placement, which again is important. I was fortunate enough to be in an advanced placement group throughout my school years, which I also feel was a benefit. The others in my class were at the same level and therefore the classes moved along quicker with no one to really hold things back. A good teacher can make almost anything fun or interesting. I still agree totally with WarAxe regarding accountablilty.
Anytime anybody needs help with vocabulary for these,” useless” standardized tests I can help. Right Alissa?
Ken :: Yeah, another thing I remember that I thought was stupid was how Advanced Chem and Advanced Math courses, when determining class ranking, were weighted the same as Advanced Basketweaving and Advanced Study Hall.
SIDE NOTE :: I noticed that BA, Ken and Alissa have each had a comment flag for possible spam. Fear not, I always approve it and it goes up here. I think the length flags it but I’m not sure. I’ll check my filter and adjust it as necessary… I just didn’t want you guys freakin’ out. I don’t even know what it tells you if it doesn’t post your comment right away.
Luckily the weighting of classes at ALCS has now changed. Of course, “honor graduate” is just a label. It is what you know you are capable of that is more important.
SIDE NOTE: The comments come up as “waiting for moderation”.
I’m in 10th grade and half the things I learn I most likely WILL NOT use… I only have to learn them to pass the tests that the state requires. I don’t understand why I’m wasting my time when i could be learning useful things.
Sarah, without knowing what you are aspiring to be it is hard for me to comment as to if you are learning things you may not use. I can tell you this; I use things I learned in 10th grade all the time in my job. I can’t tell you how many times I’ll be walking through our production floor and someone calls me over with a question on a particular part they may be working on. A lot of times all it takes is a calculator, a little trig, and the question is answered and they are back to work.
Yeah, Ken, that’s a good question. Sarah, what are some of the things you are getting tested on that you will NOT use?
The things I was tested on around 10th grade were some of the things I use the most often (or, like US and World History, are the things I most wish I remembered better).
I am very happy that Ken is using what he learned in 10th grade… I still believe we are missing the issue… we are teaching or force feeding these kids all this information for the test they take it then they are force fed the next test. There is no time for retention given in the classroom.
Years ago someone, whose name I have not retained, not sure why, gave the analogy that school is very similar to jail. Students are required to be kept in classrooms for predetermined amounts of time and are only allowed certain amounts of time to get to the next class or eat. They must ask to go to the bathroom and are only allowed if the teacher lets them. They must not talk or misbehave without consequences and are must remain in their seats at all times. They are allowed a certain amount of time for exercise and may only go from place to place with passes that have full descriptions of everything they will do. Keep in mind this is a suburban school and not a city school where they have true police presence to maintain control.
Another problem is that teachers are no longer allowed to enforce the rules because if one happens to look the wrong way at a student or heaven forbid speak to a student in a way that might be perceived by the student as wrong to them then the teacher faces abarrage of phone calls from parents threats of law suits and possible termination as an extreme. Keep in mind I am not in favor of corporal punishment but some discipline needs to be allowed without repercussions. Of course none of this would be necessary if it was properly taken care of at HOME. But thats a whole ‘nother post.
Thoughts??
We have to force feed kids so their livers will expand… oh wait, that’s foix gras.
Perhaps the material the kids are having to be force fed is too much? Limit the material to a reasonable level… allowing for teachers to recap key portions and review periodically… so that on the Regents (or whatever) they are all set.
I can really sympathize with the teachers having their hands tied and not being able to discipline. That all spirals in from our current lawyer problem… our highly litigious society and the lack of any self-responsibity anymore.
BA: Good analogy. I also agree with the discipline issue. I also see your point on retention. I wish I would have retained more of the history/english/french that I learned. At the time I didn’t really have an issue with it though. I don’t know if it is because I haven’t used much in the last 13 years or so, or if I didn’t have enough time to retain it. I do however remember more things from what I would call the better teachers. It goes back to my comment regarding how a GOOD teacher can make almost anything fun or interesting. I believe that also has an influence on retention too. Wouldn’t you agree BA?
Ken: agreed …152% !
Haha, I just saw your comment about classes on how to beat the SATs. I don’t know about the classes, but I used the books that they use in the classes (mainly Princeton Review) and raised my already high score substantially. So . . . there’s something to it.
Yeah… I read the materials when it was that time.
I just saw the classes and study materials as not really “beating” the test, but more like “studying” for the test. 
Sorta like the story of “stone soup”…