Bubbling grids or thinking, what do you want your kids to be able to do?

From the newssun.com

Standardized testing a failure of system

When schools are in Fort Knox mode and students biting their nails it can mean only thing -- it's standardized testing time.

The administration of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test began Monday and will continue through this coming week.

That challenge is followed by standardized end-of-course tests in American history, geometry, biology and algebra that are now mandated by the state. Students are taking biology and geometry exams for the first time this year.

All told this means students and staff endure weeks of stress and scheduling changes.

The stress, of course, is mostly the result of how much hangs on each individual test score.

Students' academic careers are determined by them, as are teachers' -- 50 percent of their make-or-break annual evaluation is the result of how well their students do on the FCAT.

Schools are affected, too -- their grades also derive from student test scores. Over the next few years schools will have to meet tougher grading standards, with serious results for D and F schools, including closing.

With so much on the line, teachers, students and parents tend to focus on the test rather than on the subject matter. Time which should be used for practicing skills, experimenting with ideas and working to understand complicated concepts is given over to test prep instead. Because standardized tests are multiple choice, most of the learning that does happen is a matter of memorizing facts.

It is the result of turning students from people into numbers, and using the numbers in esoteric statistical formulas to determine which teachers and schools are not getting the job done.

In the meantime, real people suffer through testing anxiety; worrying, obsessing. Some lose sleep, some can't eat, some can't stop eating.

Teachers become depressed and self-questioning, students become depressed and act out. It adds up to misery, with results whose usefulness is still being debated.

All of this has been said before by many.

In fact, it will take an organized public outcry for anything to change at all, or any time soon.

Yes, we live in a much more competitive world, and it would seem, if one relies only on numbers, that American students are slipping, while students in other countries are gaining. But here's our question -- does that really mean foreign students are better educated, or do those students just spend more time memorizing facts and learning how to take exams?

We have faith in American education, even though we know the system needs attention.

America has always led the world in nurturing independent and creative thinking.

Well educated people can find answers for themselves, and think up new questions. And that doesn't happen by choosing a, b or c or all of the above.

http://www.newssun.com/opinion/edt-042212-FCAT