New Jersey high school teacher Dan
Ferat reflects on how many tests he is now required to give to his students, as
compared to ten years ago.
So, in only ten years, we have gone
from students taking five exams per year (six for juniors with the HSPA) to 34
exams per year (30 for seniors) with many more in sight because there will be a
PARCC for EVERY SUBJECT supposedly because there are CCCS for every subject
except electives (plus those PSAT/SAT/ACT tests which I’m not even counting).
Forget the amount of time teachers
will have to spend grading all these exams and writing them and adjusting them
over the years. Honestly, that’s beside the point when it comes to education.
It’s true we don’t get enough time “on the clock” as it is, but the real issue
is the students. See, I always thought education was about LEARNING a subject
in a classroom from readings, teachers, and experiences (like labs). But with
all this testing, there will be less learning and more studying for tests. We
teachers are evaluated on how well our students do on all the tests, so of
course we’re going to teach to them. One would be a complete moron not to since
one can wind up fired if one gets too low scores in two years. This will narrow
curricula, which means less information and fewer skills learned. It will
standardize curricula more, which means fewer choices for students and less of
a need for EXPERIENCED TEACHERS, who share so much of their insight and
experiences with students to bring their subjects to life. But if everything is
just straight out of a book, like a script, all you need is a warm body to
watch the kids and lead them through the standardized curriculum.
If parents understood this, they
would not be happy. They would begin to recognize what the legislators and the
federal government are doing to undermine genuine education and to dampen
students’ ardor for learning as well as to demoralize teachers.
