Great article about teaching to the test

Love it!

Liked it when applied to the students certainly.  The article kept mentioning “evaluating teachers” also, though, and I can’t tell for certain from the context whether that meant the STUDENT test scores used in evaluating the teachers, or the TEACHER having to take a test.  I am ambivalent about the first but definitely think someone hired by the government to teach children OUGHT to be able to show they know something.  I’ve known a few too many who definitely did not have the knowlege to teach very much.  🙂  I’m always appalled when I see the results of TEACHER testing–they always occupy the very basement (by a LONG ways) of the GRE testing.  Sigh.  One of the reasons I dropped out of the education department–the sharpest kids in school were NOT in Education.  Someone who is barely literate in English or math ought not to be paid for passing along their deficient knowlege. 

I was an elementary ed major in college which, despite having some intellingent folks in there, did have the reputation of being the ‘airhead’ major. So, while there are definetely some sharp, intelligent teachers out there who teach because they are passionate and caring…unfortunately the education major has that reputation for a reason. (I actually had a friend tell me I was “too smart” to be an ed major!) I specifically remember the math for elementary teachers class that I took (basically a review of elementary math concepts – absolutely nothing higher than pre-algebra was taught), how much people complained about how “hard” it was. Really? You got into college (which implies you probably made it through at least Algebra 2 with decent scores), but you still don’t understand how to add and subtract? I left that class sort of frightened to ever send my kids to PS – although it wasn’t until years and years later that we decided to HS. I did love teaching, but I HATED being an ed major!

Jen