Obama regrets “taking the joy out of teaching and learning” with too much testing

I do not (standardize) test well. My ACT, SAT and GRE scores basically said I have down syndrome, and were barely high enough to get me into my respective college and grad schools. Luckily my grades were super high, my writing samples dialed, and teacher/professional recommendations were ace. I can't bear the thought of standardized tests. Give me an essay or oral exam any day of the week.

It should be left up to the college. If I ran a college, I'd look at standardized testing/GPA.

onenerdykidI do not (standardize) test well. My ACT, SAT and GRE scores basically said I have down syndrome, and were barely high enough to get me into my respective college and grad schools. Luckily my grades were super high, my writing samples dialed, and teacher/professional recommendations were ace. I can't bear the thought of standardized tests. Give me an essay or oral exam any day of the week.

I agree to some extent. I'd much rather take an oral exam or essay over a 5 hour long test any day, but I definitely still see merit in standardized tests. Lots of kids thrive at them, and I don't see why those kids should suffer.

most colleges now still require standardized test scores to be submitted, but they don't only use them to judge an applicant. most admissions departments will say the test scores are like 3rd or 4th on the list of things they look for in an applicant.

yeah, tests suck for some people, but you make up for it in other ways. there has to be some sort of way to rank people

Barry.McCockinerI agree to some extent. I'd much rather take an oral exam or essay over a 5 hour long test any day, but I definitely still see merit in standardized tests. Lots of kids thrive at them, and I don't see why those kids should suffer.

It's not that those kids should suffer, but I think we have to ask ourselves what is the actual point of all of this schooling and why do we have tests? If the point of schooling is to give kids who test well a place to flourish, then yeah standardized tests are great. But if the goal of schooling is to prepare kids for real life and be able to apply their knowledge in real life, then standardized tests only promote that to a small extent. More often than not, real life is more like an essay or oral exam and unlike a standardized test.

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There is a difference between testing and standardized testing (generic Scantron type exams), which is what I think the majority of the criticism is directed at. Testing should happen, no question. But standardized testing is widely regarded at not being super effective in actually getting kids to learn or prepare them for the real world or next level in academia. At its basic definition, there is nothing wrong with ensuring that the subject material, test times, and grading procedures are "standardized" but a modern standardized test has become something so sterile and 2-dimensional.

Standardized testing always struck me as a bit of a weird, almost lazy way to gauge someone's intellect.

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yeah, that's just how the world is though. not everyone deserves to get into harvard or a top school, which is why there are tons of other options out there.

onenerdykidI do not (standardize) test well. My ACT, SAT and GRE scores basically said I have down syndrome, and were barely high enough to get me into my respective college and grad schools. Luckily my grades were super high, my writing samples dialed, and teacher/professional recommendations were ace. I can't bear the thought of standardized tests. Give me an essay or oral exam any day of the week.

If the exact opposite, essays for me are really bad. I did amazing well on my SAT'S and didn't study at all. I think these tests are important to an extent but we definitely do them way to much.

nocturnalIf the exact opposite, essays for me are really bad. I did amazing well on my SAT'S and didn't study at all. I think these tests are important to an extent but we definitely do them way to much.

Some facet of testing for sure needs to happen (especially in lower levels of education) so that we can gauge if a child is learning that the proper rate. But it's interesting that the more schooling you go through, the less tests you have (at least that was my experience). Lots of tests in high school, lots of tests as a freshman in college but by the time I was a senior, I had usually only mid-terms and finals. And then in grad school, 100% of my grade in a class was based on a single (yet large) paper.

You need tests. There needs to be some metric in order to monitor the education system. I do agree that some are kinda stupid, though. I'm looking at chemistry graduate programs. The GRE wasn't exactly relevant to what I do. The math was entertaining, but, hardly relevant. The english section... lol.

What they should do is put me in a lab with some broken but fixable analytical equipment, glassware and reagents. If I don't come out with the proper compound synthesized, characterized, with relevant calculations and nothing on fire, then I fail. I don't see why I need to know words that have collectively been used 100 times through the entire human history. I'm not gonna try and send readers to a dictionary with my sophisticated treatise on chemistry. And yes, I can do trig. Might i make a mistake if I have to rush and they've inscribed 136 shapes inside a circle? Yeah, maybe. I did fine on the test, but, it doesn't strike me as all that great of a measuring device.

I never saw tests as deterministic, but I also knew I was going to do fairly well so I never worried. I've been out of high school for five years. Are there more tests now? I feel like the midwest and west have more tests than the northeast, but what do I know? Are little kids genuinely crying over this stuff because they think if they fail then their lives are over? Or are they just stubborn and hate taking tests because it's boring? I don't recall doing test prep in class in high school, but my high school was decent and wasn't in danger of being closed due to poor test scores.

You need to monitor the education system of a country. Comparisons need standards. I don't think you need a test after every grade, since normal tests in school would keep you from passing if you didn't deserve it, but you need standards sometimes. If everybody passed grade twelve then took a standardized test for the first time in their life, well that'd be a long time to wait for an indication of a problem. You'd have kids passing very easy programs, who can't do simple algebra by the end of high school, going up against kids who somehow managed to take diff eq in high school.

Also, the article, like so many, points out an issue and offers no solution. Let's take away the only standard measuring stick we can hold to our country's education system... And that's it. Everything will be alright then.

Tough topic to tackle. ACT, SAT are fine with me, especially since schools are able to decide for themselves how much weight they place on such scores when looking at student applications, but I think it can be pretty harmful at lower grades, especially elementary school. The problem with standardized tests and teaching to the tests is that classrooms and students, obviously, aren't standardized. I think what ends up happening a lot of the time is a teach will rush through something very important (say, multi-digit multiplication/division), to cover something less important (say, measuring angles) because it's on the test. The teacher will know the students don't understand the more important topic well enough, but will have to move on from it anyway, because they need to cover everything that will be on the state-wide test at the end of the year, and their students need to do well on that to move on, and they need the students to do well to keep their job. Then you end up with students lacking in skills that are crucial once the work starts getting harder and having skills that are easier to pick up later, and less important.

Dunno how to fix it, but it definitely isn't a perfect system as is.

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You couldn't be more wrong. Colleges look at ACT/SAT scores for acceptance sure, but more to help place the applicants into classes, not whittle down the field. Kids with 3.3-3.5 GPA's who involve themselves in extra curricular stuff, sports, volunteer hours, ect. have a higher chance of getting accepted than the 3.75 students with no other life than school.

stop getting so upset about people who're trying to think about how to improve the education system.

case reopened

ACT and SAT are fine with me. But kids take way to many standardized tests throughout there schooling. Teachers end up teaching to the test and kids don't learn much more than that.

TOAST.ACT and SAT are fine with me. But kids take way to many standardized tests throughout there schooling. Teachers end up teaching to the test and kids don't learn much more than that.

Its estimated that the average kid going through school takes 112 standardized tests through k-12. Thats fucked.

TOAST.ACT and SAT are fine with me. But kids take way to many standardized tests throughout there schooling. Teachers end up teaching to the test and kids don't learn much more than that.

Its estimated that the average kid going through school takes 112 standardized tests through k-12. Thats fucked.

My school has the same curriculum since like 1930 and 75% of our grade is standardized tests so its nothing new

Can someone explain standardized testing to me??? I'm a little confused. Where I come from we have a basic standard test that everyone takes for each subject they do which includes essays, multiple choice and short answer. And then this test is scaled to your school marks so they can see where everyone is. And like yeah some people complain that tests aren't for them but for the most part I see standardized testing as a good way to ensure that schools cant provide super easy tests and act like their kids are super smart. Or am I completely missing the mark with US standardized testing???

onenerdykidI do not (standardize) test well. My ACT, SAT and GRE scores basically said I have down syndrome, and were barely high enough to get me into my respective college and grad schools. Luckily my grades were super high, my writing samples dialed, and teacher/professional recommendations were ace. I can't bear the thought of standardized tests. Give me an essay or oral exam any day of the week.

onenerdykidIt's not that those kids should suffer, but I think we have to ask ourselves what is the actual point of all of this schooling and why do we have tests? If the point of schooling is to give kids who test well a place to flourish, then yeah standardized tests are great. But if the goal of schooling is to prepare kids for real life and be able to apply their knowledge in real life, then standardized tests only promote that to a small extent. More often than not, real life is more like an essay or oral exam and unlike a standardized test.

"I didn't do well on my ACTs and SATs so they are bad and I hate them, but trust me I'm smart"

Its a tough one between fuck off OP and Im high...

We need SATs and ACTs. I don't think there is anything wrong with them. But all these other standardized tests are useless. The Iowa test, The PSSA, etc. I never take those tests seriously.

I believe in other creative evaluations but I'm high right now so I had to select I'm high

Spagett+"I didn't do well on my ACTs and SATs so they are bad and I hate them, but trust me I'm smart"

I get what you're saying but it's not remotely what I mean. The fact that universities don't rank these scores as most important also agrees with my position. I'm more saying they aren't as good of a measure for how applicable someone can use their brain. I guess I'm old enough to see kids who did really well at their standardized tests drop the ball in real life applications.

Like Zoidberg above said, the GREs don't even come close to measuring your aptitude in your graduate field. If high schools actually taught kids how to write better, organize their thoughts in more coherent ways, and be able to orally communicate those thoughts better, then those kids are much better prepared for real life than kids who can memorize facts/stats and find patterns between 2 associated words.

Many people on here said they hated public speaking (there was a thread a month or so ago) because they find it challenging or daunting in some way. But, this is definitely the best way to get to know a subject matter- if you can clearly and cogently talk about a subject, then you will know it (obviously some subjects like math, logic, etc will be better written given their natures). If schools taught students how to speak about their subjects better, it would encourage them to know the material better than simply taking a Scantron test. In order to speak well on a subject, you need to know the subject well, and this skill is something the real world looks to more importantly than standardized test scores.