brees--
>>>Do you have information that the general approach is to raise the kids knowledge, skills and abilities related to Academic Skills....or, that they are being instructed on the actual test items?<<<
You'll have to answer that question for yourself.
As I said in a prior post:
"I live in a state where they do not teach to the test. They don't have to as the school standards here have been high consistently over time."
In my state an announcement came home about a month prior to the test giving the date. It also indicated a short pre-test would be given two weeks prior to the test. In the two remaining weeks my son said his teacher gave them some additonal math worksheets to help them with the test.
His experience was certainly a far cry from what Texas school students are being put through year after year.
This info
>>>"The some schools spend months simply preparing for TAAS to the exclusion of real academics. Many schools do not have adequate libraries, but have plenty of expensive TAAS materials."<<<
came from a program which interviewed a group of theachers who are alarmed at what TAAS has become. There was footage of the TAAS rallies and of the TAAS software and preparation material which runs into hundreds of thousands of dollars for some school districts...money the teacher felt was better spent on real teaching materials and libraries.
Read the Harvard critique in total to get the bigger picture.
This major heading (section) may address your concerns:
>>>The Educational Impact of the TAAS<<<
A few excerpts:
>>>In many urban schools, whose students are overwhelmingly poor and African American and Latino, the TAAS system of testing reduces the quality and quantity of subjects being tested by TAAS.
The pressure to raise TAAS scores leads teachers to spend class time, often several hours each week, drilling students on practice exam materials. This TAAS drill takes time from real teaching and learning: Much of the drill time is spent learning how to bubble-in answers, how to weed out obviously wrong answers, and how to become accustomed to multiple-choice, computer-scored formats. In the name of "alignment" between course curricula and test, TAAS drills are becoming the curriculum in our poorest schools.
The pressure to raise TAAS scores leads teachers to substitute commercial TAAS-prep materials for the substance of the curriculum. Principals, deans of instruction, and other building or central office administrators urge or even require teachers to set aside the course curriculum and to use the TAAS-prep materials in their place.
Although TAAS is supplanting a more substantial curriculum throughout the state, the problem emerges unevenly. It is more common in traditionally low-performing schools, the schools attended by low-income and non-Anglo children. In contrast, middle-class children in white, middle class schools are reading literature, learning a variety of forms of writing, and studying mathematics aimed at problem-solving and conceptual understanding. In essence, these children continue to receive an education appropriate for their age and grade level, while poor and minority children are devoting class time to practice test materials whose purpose is to help children pass the TAAS. The TAAS system of testing thus widens the gap between the public education provided for poor and minority children and that of children in traditionally higher-scoring (that is, Anglo and wealthier) schools.
Advocates of a state standardized system of testing frequently make the argument that "before TAAS, minority children were receiving nothing. Now at least, they are getting something (even if it is just exposure to the kinds of information that will be tested in the multiple-choice format)."
We have seen no studies that have documented this claim. But what we have seen is a reduction in content, even in those schools historically under-served and under-resourced, when the TAAS becomes the focus. An experienced Anglo English teacher at Seguín High School (a pseudonym),5 a predominantly Mexican HISD school, underscores this point. She commented that she teaches "less" English each year.6
Less as time goes on. Less as time goes on with the TAAS test thing. Because we have to devote so much time to the specific functions of the TAAS test, it’s harder and harder [to teach English]...<<<
and--
>>>The required "TAAS objectives" or "TAAS prompts" which are to be drilled each day are often presented to teachers as five- to ten-minute exercises. However, teachers report that drilling to these prompts, often required by the administration if their children are poor and minority (with a history of low scores), frequently usurps so much of the class period that little time is left for teaching and learning.
It is a myth that TAAS sets the minimum standards and that teachers are encouraged to go beyond that. In many schools, it is the best-prepared teachers with the richest curriculum who are required to scale back in order to teach to the sequence and format of the TAAS. In low-performing schools, even the most knowledgeable teachers are asked to set aside their lesson plans and materials to teach to the TAAS.<<<
and--
>>>The TAAS system of testing goes against what is known in research on children’s learning.
Research on children’s learning shows that learning is not linear, that it must build on what children already know and understand, that it must engage children’s active thinking, and that it must engage many senses (Gardner, 1991; Ohanian, 1999; Sacks, 1999). In striking contrast, the TAAS reinforces one particular mode of learning. This cognitive impact of the test has not been seriously investigated. Classroom observations and teacher reports, however, raise critical questions about the sort of learning that is reinforced, those which are subordinated to TAAS formats, and those which are increasingly structured out of test-dominated classrooms.
The TAAS mode of learning is to "master" brief, discreet, randomly selected pieces of information. The reading comprehension and grammatical sections of the writing TAAS, for example, cover isolated skills through very brief written passages. These written passages are not intended to build a cumulative knowledge base; they are not meant to connect with children’s understanding. The isolated skills are presented in fragments, carefully sequenced to match the fragmented and isolated skills in the Texas curriculum frameworks. Learning fragments of fact and skill out of context is known to be counterproductive to understanding and to building cumulative skills which can be applied in an unfamiliar setting or to unfamiliar information in the future.
Two features of the TAAS and TAAS-prep materials are especially damaging to learning. The first is that under the TAAS system, students are to choose among possible answers that are given to them; they rarely have to think on their own, puzzle out a problem, come up with a possible answer, or articulate an idea.<?b> This engenders passivity and a dependent learning style that fails to develop many essential cognitive skills. The second is that TAAS presents the child with choices, of which all but one are incorrect. To the extent that children, especially in poor and minority schools, are taught a curriculum and test drills that are in the TAAS format, they are spending three-quarters of their learning time considering erroneous, "wrong" material. It is doubtful that there is any respectable learning theory that advocates children’s continual exposure to incorrect material.
Again, the TAAS system places most at risk the children in schools that heavily emphasize raising TAAS scores (usually poor and minority). These children not only fail to learn the same rich, complex material that children in middle class schools learn, but they are simultaneously required to devote hours and hours each week to a de facto worthless curriculum. By keeping children focused on these drills and these disembodied facts, the TAAS system of testing is denying them access to forms of knowledge and ways of knowing that can lead them beyond this minimal level, into higher forms of learning. That is why one teacher said that yes, under TAAS, certain students in her school who previously were not being taught much math (these were bilingual students, recently immigrated), are "getting more math now that we are testing everyone." But she cautioned, "but of course, it’s not real math – it’s not what you would want for your children. It’s just TAAS Math." The opportunity costs of spending weeks, months and even years on test drills which narrow learning modes and close off complex thought may be one of the costliest effects of the TAAS system of testing. It is a cost being borne by the least-well served children in our schools.<<< |
