\”It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.\”

Wow, I survived and I had fun doing it! I have to be honest, the idea of blogging for this classroom scared the [bleep] outta me when I first heard about it. But now that it’s over and as I look back, I realized that it was quite the experience. I had never blogged before, well, not including the usual Myspace blogs about a boyfriend dumping me, getting a new cell phone and needing numbers, or I just buying a new car. That’s NOT blogging…

I learned a lot through this assignment. I really loved how we could pick a topic that was interesting to us. I chose the effect of technology on students and standardized testing, and I feel that it was quite a success. I started off kind of bumpy, having a hard time finding good articles about technology in schools, and then for the last three blogs, I finally found some that were of some importance to me and that I could relate to.

I’m not going to say that I am now a pro at blogging, but I have come a long way and have definitely improved from the Myspace blogs. HA, I still laugh to think about some that I have wrote on that. Anyway, thank you all for a great semester and thank you professor Rozema for all the help you have provided for me, the advice, the knowledge to become an educated blogger, but most importantly, the knowledge to become a teacher.

Sincerely,

Christie

Comment on Carrie’s blog “You are What You Measure”

Comment on Carrie’s blog “Presidential Candidates on NCLB”

Comment on Dan’s blog “Too Much Technology?…Really?”

Comment on Eli’s Blog “Some Interesting Ideas…”

Comment on Eric’s Blog “Let’s Go Ban Books!”

Comment on Nathan’s Blog “Novels on Myspace”

Comment on Shakura’s Blog “Student Teachers”

Comment on Eric’s Blog “Should her Job be Gone?”

Comment on Walter’s Blog “Let Us Now Praise Student Journalists”

Comment on Dan’s Blog “Cell Phones in School”

If any of you see any of my other comments that I have not listed (if there are any), please let me know…. THANKS!

Someone in the state’s educational establishment has finally shown some sense about testing.

Oh my goodness, I found an article bashing standardized testing! YES! haha  I did not think that was possible, but while looking through my feed on standardized testing, I came across this article from the Winston-Salem Journal that explains that standardized testing is BAD.

The Blue Ribbon Commission on Testing and Accountability has recommended that the State Board of Education significantly reduce the number of standardized tests that our children take in the public schools.

The commission agreed that the fourth-, seventh-, and tenth-grade writing tests should be eliminated as well as the eighth-grade computer skills tests.  They also suggested that five end-of-course exams for high school students should be cut, leaving only five exams total.  That’s a little better, haha.

The commission also stated that there is even better news; that two of the science exams scheduled to being this year will NOT be counted for state purposes.

Let’s face the facts.  This wave of testing that started a dozen or so years ago is designed for one purpose-to give politicians cover.  The tests have little to do with educating children.  In truth, they probably harm the education our children get.  And all the testing, especially in the early grades, helps make our children crazy with stress.

Politicians began calling for more exams as a way of demonstrating that the schools were improving.  But a child’s education is not like a potted plant’s growth pattern.  It can’t be measured with definite precision.  That’s why teachers often count many factors into a child’s grade-not just test results but also classroom contributions, homework, originality and creativity.

STANDARDIZED TESTS DON’T MEASURE WHETHER A CHILD IS CREATIVE OR IMAGINATIVE.  THEY MEASURE ONLY WHETHER THE CHILD CAN SPIT BACK WHAT THE SCHOOL HAS FED HIM OR HER.

AMEN!  haha  Wow I love whoever wrote this article.  Because the tests are so specific in what the students need to learn, the teachers are obligated to teach them only what is called for on the tests.  That leaves no room for broadening their imaginations, let alone the teacher’s.  When the standardized test results are so important, the curriculum of the school becomes focused on the test.  Teachers are told by the school administrators what to teach and when to teach it.  What’s the fun in that?  By doing that,  we are not engaging young minds to learn and we are definitely not encouraging them to want to learn if they are being forced to learn.  And what about the students who are not great test takers?  They may be excellent learners and strongly understand the material being taught, but as soon as a test is placed in front of them, they get nervous and freeze up.  That is no way to grade a student.  As the article mentioned, teachers look for other factors when grading a child, not just how they perform on tests.  I think this is something we should really take into consideration, and the commission should, too!

This next quote from the article really shocked me.

The orgy of standardized testing requirements has also diminished the value of teachers.  Political candidates seek teachers’ votes with empty words about teacher professionalism, but then take away much of their professional discretion to teach children.

Umm…..I’m not even sure how to respond to this.  It’s kind of contradicting or hypocritical of itself.  Teachers are given the power to teach children, but then it’s taken away…how does that work?  I will end with this from the article which I believe best sums up what standardized tests do:

There is one person in the school system who knows better than everyone in the world whether little Johnny has learned how to read and calculate this year, and that is his teacher.  Even mom and dad probably won’t know as well as the teacher.  Yet the teacher’s judgment is stripped away by the standardized exam and, if Johnny tends to freeze up on exams, then the state says he can’t read.  This is simply foolish.

I’m really curious as to what other people have to say about this topic.  I will say this, during middle school and high school was the time when most of us are obligated to take these horrible, pointless tests.  When I was in middle school and high school, I never had an opinion on these tests, one being the MEAP.  Sure I knew that the school basically FORCED students to take this test so that they can look good if we all pass, but that was about it.  I never thought about how the tests only grade us on what the school was teaching us.  The tests do not grade us on how well we have learned, but how well the school was teaching us.  How does that help our own education? …

Trim the Tests

Winston-Salem Journal

Friday, November 30, 2007

Standardized testing that seeks to measure students’ English language proficiency has improved significantly nationwide since 2001, when Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act, according to a UC Davis report released today [November 28, 2007].

I was shocked to have found an article that focused on standardized testing for English and NCLB. The article I read posted in the UCDAVIS is set in California, but I think it was important to read nonetheless because it can be applied to anywhere. Professor of Education at the University of California, and editor of the report, Jamal Abedi believes that testing students in English proficiency plays a huge role in the success of the nation’s estimated 5million English learners. Abedi states:

This is important because one of the greatest influences on English language learners’ academic careers, when instructed and assessed in English, is their level of English proficiency.

I agree with this statement.  If you’re going to pursue a career in the English language, you must be proficient in that language.  I’m not saying that I’m perfectly proficient in English, but I have seen many other English students who would like to pursue a career in this language but they are struggling with learning it.  The best way, and I feel the only way to tell whether or not a student is proficient is to test them.  You can’t always tell just by talking to someone.  A lot of the mistakes come out in writing as well.

The No Child Left Behind Act mandated reliable, valid annual assessments of students’ English proficiency.  In response, the U.S. Department of Education awarded grants to four consortia of states in 2002, and directed each to create and field-test a state-of-the-art assessment.

A report was made that summarized the results and progress of the four efforts.  The full report, “English Language Proficiency Assessment in the Nation: Current Status and Future Practice,” can be viewed here.

According to the previous report, approximately 25 states are now using at least one of the four tests.

The report found that there are still some technical issues to be resolved in English-proficiency testing.  Even so, unlike many of the pre-2001 tests, the newly developed tests;

• assess academic English as well as everyday English;
• are aligned with individual states’ English language proficiency academic standards;
• cover kindergarten through 12th grade, rather than focusing on a particular grade or age level;
• allow grade-to-grade comparisons as well as measurement of a range of proficiency levels within the same grade;
• assess speaking and listening, and not just written English;
• cannot be acquired independently by students or parents seeking an edge in high-stakes testing situations; and
• have proved valid and reliable through vigorous field testing: the tests accurately measure students’ English proficiency, and test results closely correlate with students’ performance in the classroom.

The two bullet points that I found interesting were: #3) cover kindergarten through 12th grade, rather than focusing on a particular grade or age level, and #5) assess speaking and listening, and not just written English.  I liked #3 because it allows people to look at the progress in proficiency the students have made and looks at that as a whole, not just a certain part.  They do not just grade the students on how proficient they are at a certain age/grade level, but look at how far they have come in learning the English language.  I liked #5 because, like what I said before, you can’t just grade the students on what they say, this bullet shows that they test the students in speaking and listening, as well as written English.

I will end with this:

Abedi, one of the country’s leading experts on standardized testing of English learners, ends the report with a chapter in which he recommends next steps.  Among them:

• Ensure all tests are tailored to the curriculum standards of each state that uses the test.
• Conduct research to ensure tests fairly assess all English learner subgroups.
• Use assessment results to help make informed decisions about English learner participation in standardized testing designed for native English speakers, since these tests may not be valid for students with lower levels of English proficiency.
• Ongoing review and field testing of the new assessments to ensure their quality.

The four consortia are listed in the article.

USDAVIS News and Information

November 28, 2007

Contacts: Jamal Abedi, School of Education

Donna Justice, School of Education

Claudia Morain, UC Davis News Service

Full Article here