January 30, 2006

Teaching to the test

It's not your imagination, kids are getting dumber.
And apparently this is only the beginning:

"'[T]here is greater evidence of teachers teaching to the tests. This means students can perform well in the tests without necessarily understanding the underlying concepts.'

[Paul] Black [emeritus professor of education at King's College and chair of the 1988 National Curriculum Task Group on Assessment and Testing (TGAT)] does not demur. 'Research from around the world shows that, when the stakes are high, teachers teach to the tests,' he says. 'This produces a short-term, three-year uplift in results before they plateau. We also get to see some artificial results, such as in the US,[emphasis added] where every state is above the national average in its test scores.'"



Now, I'm no math genius, but I'm fairly certain that ALL the states can't have scores higher than the "national average."

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