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The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

iamjwal.com

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Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#101

Post by femto »

WalterBright wrote: post #20

> SOL tests are inherently unfair, I regularly see claims that tests are at odds with learning. What I don't understand is how anyone can tell what kids have learned without some sort of test.

Three arguments against standardised tests:

1) As system, schools tend to teach towards the test, at the expense of a diverse education.

2) The tests essentially test how good a student is at doing tests, rather than what they have understood and learned. Children can do brilliantly in the classroom and badly on the test, then be marked as a poor student.

3) The tests are used to categorise the children as they go though the school system (eg. school entries). It's not fair to hold an 8-year old's test score against them 3 years later as they choose their high school.

For Australian readers: did you know that NAPLAN, the Australian standardised test, is purely voluntary, despite the school system making out that it is compulsory? The form to withdraw a child is online [1]. All you have to do is fill it out and give it to your principal, no questions asked.

You will notice that the official NAPLAN info goes out its way to give the impression that a parent needs a special excuse to decline testing for their children [2]. This is because "All Australian governments have committed to promoting maximum participation of students in the national assessment process" [3], despite what might be best for the child.

[1] http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/media/downloads/languagesuppor...

[2] http://www.nap.edu.au/naplan/school-support/student-particip...

[3] http://www.nap.edu.au/information/faqs/naplan--participation...

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#102

Post by wyclif »

warfangle wrote: post #14
brador wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is (in a free market). China/HK has millionaire private teachers.

It is (in a socialist market). Finnish teachers have some of the utmost prestige.

The problem with those who make 1:1 comparisons of the US and Finnish public education systems is that Finland is largely (yes, I know there are some Swedes there) a homogeneous culture, whereas the US is a "melting pot" containing a huge variety of cultures.

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#105

Post by [deleted] »

logicallee wrote: post #71
loteck wrote: post #60

Do we care more about student progress or our appearance? We care about both, and we have to. Proposed solutions will have to cater to this reality to have any hope of success. Why can’t we start a movement to walk away from these tests? Because a ton of scared people think the tests are the safety net of education. They are the last resort. If you got a bad education and can still past the test, it's a quantifiable…

>> Why can’t we start a movement to walk away from these tests? >Because a ton of scared people think the tests are the safety net of education. They are the last resort. If you got a bad education and can still past the test, it's a quantifiable bare minimum. Why does test-driven development enable the efficient creation of software that works, but the same isn't true of education? For example, asking a student to r…

[deleted]

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#106

Post by dferr »

logicallee wrote: post #71
loteck wrote: post #60

Do we care more about student progress or our appearance? We care about both, and we have to. Proposed solutions will have to cater to this reality to have any hope of success. Why can’t we start a movement to walk away from these tests? Because a ton of scared people think the tests are the safety net of education. They are the last resort. If you got a bad education and can still past the test, it's a quantifiable…

>> Why can’t we start a movement to walk away from these tests? >Because a ton of scared people think the tests are the safety net of education. They are the last resort. If you got a bad education and can still past the test, it's a quantifiable bare minimum. Why does test-driven development enable the efficient creation of software that works, but the same isn't true of education? For example, asking a student to r…

The TDD analogy works when youre trying to objectively quantify and rank a person, based on their test result, but i don't think it works as well when youre trying to test a student body, or more roboticly put, a body of objects(really, thats not so TDD as much as it is ranking outputs of a black box)

When it comes to testing teacher/school performance through its students, if you reconsider a test framework is given a body of objects:

* instantiated outside its control(students are brought, not created at school)

* instantiated with unique and unknown inputs(vs given known inputs)

* have hidden independent variables(personal traits)

* have hidden linked/shared variables(external traits, economic environment, local crime, family etc)

* have _few known inputs_ (teachers, school staff, grounds)

and then ONLY test pass/fail based on those _few known inputs_ and the results from each individual object, you will learn that the inputs pass/failed, but determining what the cause is will be far harder(strong linked variable or teacher? intelligence sapping virus?). unfortunately the frameworks executors believe that the tests clearly show that given the inputs they control, the results are repeatable.

I don't think testing a body of objects-- err --students is pointless, but directly linking their results to teachers and schools discounts so much more than this testing framework can account for. They should be a starting place for conversation, but not a litmus test.

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#107

Post by arghbleargh »

antimagic wrote: post #77
logicallee wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Why can’t we start a movement to walk away from these tests? >Because a ton of scared people think the tests are the safety net of education. They are the last resort. If you got a bad education and can still past the test, it's a quantifiable bare minimum. Why does test-driven development enable the efficient creation of software that works, but the same isn't true of education? For example, asking a student to r…

Actually, test-driven development is a pretty decent analogy. Including the shortcomings of TDD, such as the fact that you pass the unit tests doesn't mean you have a working product, which in education translates as students passing tests but not being able to use the subject in real life. You can reduce the delta between passing tests by writing more, better tests, but again you quickly run into a problem - you spe…

In the same vein, an easy way to get the tests to pass is to add a bunch of "if" statements to handle each test case. Of course, that is counterproductive in terms of the usefulness of the software.

However, because so much weight is put on testing, that is essentially what happens in school a lot of the time. For some reason, it seems more obviously absurd in the software context.

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#108

Post by jpadkins »

gwillen wrote: post #79
hueving wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>admittedly most of that performance is likely due to unmentionable factors. A culture of forcing children to study for hours every night at home and go to school 6 days a week?

I was assuming 'cheating'.

I assumed genetics.

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#109

Post by jonpress »

I was surprised that he mentioned the global financial crisis. I think 'too big to fail' was one of the biggest frauds ever committed against society. There is no such thing as too big to fail.

I think the 2008 financial crisis was an evolutionary mechanism for society to rid itself of excessive greed among its leaders (natural selection). The bailout was an unnatural intervention and will only serve to propagate the genes for greed in our society.

I think it's only a matter of time though before the next crisis - And I think it will be the same people who will take us there - This time the cause will be more clever and more complicated than the last time.

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#110

Post by randomnumber53 »

rdtsc wrote: post #12

Great points. This, I think is one of the fundamental problems: --- If parents and local decision-makers really value education (and there is a small portion of the community that does), student and teacher morale would be much different. --- The overall environment matters more than the teacher. We've mentioned it here not too long ago as well. Doesn't matter how fancy the workbooks and new materials or how hard we…

Small point, but I think the writers of Breaking Bad agree with you more than you think they do. The show was in no way endorsing meth cooking, as it ruins (nearly) every aspect of Walt's life.

In fact, the show was basically saying, "Hey, teaching needs to be more valued in our culture, because right now 'good' teachers can't afford what they need and feel discouraged."

Now, of course the meth-cooking was an exaggeration--and in no way is Walt excused for his actions (he had friends, family, and co-workers all offering to help)--but it was meant to show how trapped teachers felt.

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