The educational system of West Virginia is built to a high quality, but there are several parts of it that create a sense of unnecessary institutionalization revolving around a struggle for faculty to meet the standards of test makers and government officials. Statistic-building forces such as the Westest, Writing Assessment, Acuity, and more force teachers to enforce a cookie-cutter curriculum that takes from the personalization and deep level of comprehension that students require for a well-rounded education. There is also a degrading sense of unfairness between teachers and students.
The school systems of the United States have evolved in recent years to care mainly about tests scores and “No Child Left Behind.” Teachers have a set of things they must teach in a certain order or their students may not pass the dreaded Acuity tests or the majorly flawed system involving the Westest. I understand that these tests are designed to ensure students are learning the things they need to know, but it forces teachers to focus less on things that may be useful but not on the test. The Westest is the big one. Apparently, if the school does not meet a certain scoring, there is a problem. I do not wish to offend any school officials, but honestly, do you really think that forcing kids to take a standardized test early in the morning when they honestly don’t care about it is the best way to judge a school? It also does not help that the test is so standardized, advanced students are forgotten. For example, I have been in an advanced math class since the eighth grade, meaning I took Geometry in ninth grade instead of the usual Algebra 1. The time for Westest came and instead of being given the math test for geometry (the subject I had focused on all year) I was given the standard Algebra 1 test. Tell me that in some way this is fair. This not only is a problem for math classes though. High schools offer many different types of classes to get their math, social studies, english, and science credits. It would be more sensible to give each kid the tests relatable to their schedule. It would certainly make scoring more accurate. A few years ago, the Westest was “improved” by adding the yearly writing assessment into the English score. I could into this unfairness but I’ll just leave that to three words “West Virginia Writes.” To those who may be unaware of what this is, it is an online essay writing program designed to prepare students of all ages for the Writing Assessment. It goes on a scoring system of 1-6 (6 being the highest), but it is severely flawed to the point where adding the word e-bay to an essay can boost your score by 3 points (Yes, school board, I have witnessed this happen). Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that the schools want to ensure their teachers are actually teaching, but perhaps in-person evaluations of classrooms and students would be less unjust.
While we are on the topic of unfairness, I would like to touch on a subject that I am positive many of my fellow bloggers have gone in-depth about: truancy. At my school, there are kids who cut class (many students refer to them as the “skippers”) that loiter around campus and not a thing is said or done to them. It has amazed me the lack of interest administrators have in these everyday offenders. The second a good student leaves campus to buy the lunch that they missed due to a lengthy test (which I understand is still breaking the rules), they are arrested. Arrest the kids that are always doing it then! That is called fairness. Those kids are doing the same thing, give them the same punishment! It may just be a problem at my school, but I have a nagging feeling it is not. Maybe this is because some teachers are more concerned about the concrete rules than the fact of the matter. As I mentioned earlier: institutionalization.
I love my school. It is the best high school in the county, but I feel like there are some things that could be changed in it that would be beneficial.
-R
2 comments:
So many good points made in your Blog. Standardized Testing no longer assesses students but teachers. At that, all they really are accomplishing is perhaps can Pavlov's dogs repeat for a treat? I have taught my children for years not to buy into the stress and guilt layed out by their teachers during the Westest week because it really doesn't do anything to assess a student's abilities but primarily the teacher's. Not a fair assessment at all in my opinion.
Which brings us to the topic of computer read and graded writing assessments. How in the world can a computer understand the emotion and content of an essay? A well thought out and supported thesis statement cannot be comprehended by a computer. Not to mention the fact that the prompts put forth appear to be pretty lame subject matter. So if I can spell and puncuate correctly my writing is exemplary even though I made no effort to define and support the position I took on the prompt?!Hmmm, e-bay? Does this mean the computer grading assumes you are technoligically advanced if you can make reference to an on-line shopping web page? MB
To clarify-I do not tell my kids to purposely blow the Westest--merely not to stress out about it because you either know it or you don't know it. Being anxious about the process isn't going to help your test score--in fact it will probably hinder because you will spend too much time second guessing yourself. MB
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