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President Obama: Too Many Tests Make Education Boring
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?
“Too much testing makes education boring for kids”, President Barack Obama said Monday at a town hall meeting hosted at a Washington, D.C. high school.
“Too often what we have been doing is using these tests to punish students or to, in some cases, punish schools,” the president told students and parents.
The president, who is pushing to rewrite some of the nation’s education law, would like to see students take fewer standardized tests and school performance measured in ways other than just exam results.
According the Associated Press, Obama said “One thing I never want to see happen is schools that are just teaching the test because then you’re not learning about the world, you’re not learning about different cultures, you’re not learning about science, you’re not learning about math,” the president said. “All you’re learning about is how to fill out a little bubble on an exam and little tricks that you need to do in order to take a test and that’s not going to make education interesting.”
The president endorses the occasional administering of standardized tests to determine a “baseline” of student ability. He said his daughters Sasha, 9, and Malia, 12, recently took a standardized test that didn’t require advance preparation. Instead, he said, it was just used as a tool to diagnose their strengths and weaknesses, and show areas where they could use more emphasis from teachers.
The Obama administration has proposed replacing the tough No Child Left Behind Standards that include getting 100 percent of students proficient in math, reading and science by 2014. Obama is advocating a less stringent requirement that by 2020 all students graduating from high school should be ready for college or a career.
President Obama wants Congress to send him a rewrite of the 2001 law before the start of a new school year this fall. Although his education secretary has been working with lawmakers of both parties, the deadline may be unrealistic with Congress focused on the budget and the economy. Congressional Republicans also look unwilling to sign off on Obama’s plans to increase spending on education.
Photo: flickr.com/billaday
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4 Comments
[...] that’s not going to make education interesting.” And he got a point, one of the reason why tests are useless is because it makes the process of gaining knowledge to be boring. To my opinion, this is an [...]
Fact: We No Longer Remember What The School Taught Us…. | JabberGibber commented on Mar 30 11 at 2:43 am[...] that’s not going to make education interesting.” And he got a point, one of the reason why tests are useless is because it makes the process of gaining knowledge to be boring. To my opinion, this is an [...]
Because We Don’t Remember What School Has Taught Us… | Candu Pembunuh Waktu commented on Mar 31 11 at 2:22 amFactorTree commented on Mar 29 11 at 1:45 pmToo much high-stakes testing is undoubtedly harmful because of the “teaching to the test” effect. But testing in itself is not inherently a bad thing and studies show there are actually learning benefits associated with it (when used in the right way). http://thefactortree.com/2011/01/if-you-want-to-remember-take-a-test/
G commented on Nov 17 11 at 7:11 pmOh please… I actually went through the school system post-NCLB and we spend a few class periods, tops, practicing for the test. And it’s not “learning to fill out bubbles”, it’s just doing work set up the same way as the test. These reports make it sound like all kids ever do is take tests, which is just silly. They last a few days once a year. And the “filling out bubbles” thing is completely disingenuous. No one is spending too much time learning how to color in a little circle, and a score on the test does not reflect bubbling-in skills.
On the other hand, the tests are completely ridiculous and poorly written and any prep at all for them is a detriment to learning. We need to get rid of the NCLB tests, let schools/teachers develop their own tests based on what their specific kids study, and then publish both the tests and the scores (without names, obviously) so everyone knows what the kids are studying and whether they’re actually learning it. Prep for the tests would be the normal stuff you do in a classroom… If you learn a lot about Elizabeth I, then you can do well on a test about Elizabeth I without any special preparation.
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