The tests and the results of the test are public as a result of the freedom on information act we have here in Sweden (more or less everything the “government” do on all levels are public so almost everything we do in school is public) but if you want to start comparing different schools you will need to compile the information yourself. (some district put statistic together but not all).

I wish the system could reward good results but if it does it need to take many factors into account like social composite of the students, quality of the schools the students went to before high school. A simple system could do more harm than good (imho)

I have two and a half week left with regular classes. In one of my sections we do makeup work and will have a voluntary test on the last day for the ones close to a higher grade. My seniors will have the last test next Monday and after that I will not be able to make them do anything ;-). One section I have both in math and physics and I have been steeling time from physics to math and now we are paying back, the physics course go on after the summer so it is not that hard to keep the students going.

/Per

Per, congrats on finishing your Swedish standardized tests (SSTs?). Not sure if your year is complete, but we’ve still got a month and, man, it’s hard not to feel a little depressed. Like, what are we working towards now?

Am I to understand that the difference between the Swedish and American systems is that ours carries consequences with it and yours doesn’t? Are employment decisions ever made from a teacher’s testing record? Are the assessment results made public, even on a broad, aggregated scale? Curious stuff, there.

We have national test at the end of every math course in Sweden and I do teach to the test. I think that these test are the best way for the government to tell the teachers what they want us to teach the kids. Maybe it is easier in math and physics then in English (Swedish in our case) but it is really the only way to give an education from different a chance to be equivalent. If the test is well constructed I don’t see anything wrong in teaching to the test. Ok, it is important to remember how the test in later courses will be even when teaching early courses and to plan for how the skills I teach will be used while working and at university, but still if the test is well made it will reflect that.

I take great pride in my classes result on the national test (never had another class score better then my classes at the schools I have been working at to date ;-) and I think the result, at least in part, reflect the skill of the teacher.

As an outsider looking at NCLB it looks like a good idea made to simple, from what I understand the system don’t take much consideration of all the different variables that is beyond the teachers and administration but I am for the idea to try and measure the result of education and to connect it to a reward/penalty system in someway BUT a system like that is hard to make and a bad system may well hurt more than it helps.

Think I might wandered of the topic some but I have been grading national test for 15h today with only two short breaks so I have earned the right ;-)

/Per

I’m with you in regard to the lie passed that standardized testing equals the death of creativity or joy. I don’t think it does, but I do think that students are thrown a whole bunch of tests to take within a short amount of time, some of which matter to their future (SAT, ACT, AP) and some of which don’t (CST, except for juniors who take the EAP parts of math and English). This does equal at least the beginnings of the death of creativity or joy for our students.

As you mention in #2:
“see what the state of California wanted me to do.”

We’ve had this discussion before and I again have to assume that the math standards are different from the English standards in this regard, but I don’t believe that the state of California knows what they want teachers to do. Nor do I believe that the state of California knows what’s best for students. The mandates we’re getting from CSU/UC schools and from the business world are different than the incredibly vague standards the state created 10 years ago.

Teaching my students to read a brief passage and answer surface-level, multiple-choice questions about that text is nowhere near as important as teaching critical thinking and writing. Further, there’s a whole set of listening and speaking standards that are never (mark that, never) tested on any standardized test. That doesn’t instill me with much faith in either my subject area’s standards or the testing that ETS has created to measure progress on them.