Study: Little benefit in high-stakes tests (NCLB counterproductive)

[deadparrot]

A study funded by a Michigan educational think tank says the high-stakes testing mandated by the Bush administration may be counter-productive.

High Stakes Testing and Student Achievement: Problems for the No Child Left Behind Act was released Tuesday by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

The authors examined data from 25 states. David Berliner, Arizona State University, and Sharon Nichols, University of Texas, San Antonio, also developed a measurement of the pressure put on teachers, students and parents by the testing system in a given state in order to make state-by-state comparisons.

Berliner and Nicholas say that the states with higher percentages of minority students are more likely to adopt high-stakes testing. They also found that high-stakes testing tends to reduce students' chances of moving from the eighth grade to the 12th grade, presumably because more students are kept behind and drop out.

The authors also found no correlation between high-stakes testing and increased scores on the National Association of Educational Progress.

http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=118360&cat=World

[Lindacooks]

1. Gee, a bush* program that does the opposite of what it's named.

WHAT a surprise.

Like Healthy Forests Initiative, Clear Skies Initiative, Woman's Right to Know - all PURE LIES.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. kick

[M155Y_A1CH]

3. Arizona State link

Here is a link to the studies:

http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/high-stakes-testing.htm

[WhiteTara]

4. does this answer the question...is our children

learning yet?

[Sabriel]

5. "No one could have predicted NCLB being an abject failure."

Except for millions of teachers, that is.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

6. Or anyone else with common sense

For that matter.

[ninkasi]

7. So we see who profits...

And by googling, I found this

http://california.teachers.net/chatboard/topic5728/9.15.05.16.51.37.html

Like every other thing Chimp pushes, there is money for a crony or brother involved.

"If you did any research into the "Texas Miracle", you'd know it was a Bush
Republican scam. You'd also know Republicans make scams pay, kind of like
creating faux WMDs in Iraq for oil. Halliburton is right up the street
from me in Houston and they have made a bundle off stupid Americans.

First of all, the big money to be made is not off the TAKS high-stakes
testing, but what is called "benchmark testing" ($10,000 per test). Our
middle school of 1200 students tests 3 times a year. Multiply that by 300
schools and I think you'd agree we are talking big money (from a teacher's
perspective).

Ignite sold us the sh**test software made for another $10,000 per school.
Neil Bush's software is so bad no one uses it, but we bought it anyway
because we didn't want to incur the wrath of W. To add insult to injury,
part of the payment to Neil Bush came from local charities for inner-city
youth, charities that Houstonians thought were for the actual benefit of
city's poor kids and not George and Neil Bush."

This is from California Teachers Net, but valuable teaching time is being taken up all over the country because of the test, which is not designed to help kids anyway. It's designed to enrich Neil Bush. Everything that man does is for profit or power...everything. Amazing that so many people were duped for so long, thinking he was some kind of likable, aw-shucks, kind of guy. He's a snake, always has been, and always will be. I detested him the first time I saw him...he repulsed me. He still does.

[Sgent]

8. There's a reason this

wasn't published in a journal...the statistical analysis sucks.

Not that their conclusion is neccissarily wrong, but even a cursory review shows the can't figure out the difference between an independent and dependent variable. Whoever wrote this needs to retake stats, because the went wild with SAS but didn't understand what they were actually doing.

As for the schools, I don't know what the answer is. Its not money -- at least not more in the education system directly (there is almost an inverse correlation between money spent and education gained). I figure if high stakes testing is good enough for physicians and attorney's it was at least worth a try. In some districts at least, it has produced marked improvements.

What I do know is we are bordering on criminal in how we are education minorities and the poor in this country. Even to repugs this should be obvious -- how can someone get a good paying job or go to college if they can't read and write? Maybe we need to poor in massive amounts into social services, legalize drugs (which will make many communities poorer short term) to reduce crime, etc.

I really don't know, I just know that the status quo is both unacceptable and criminally negligent. I know there are excellent teacher's in the school system, there are also terrible ones. This goes the same with administrators and school boards.