Running counter

A trip to the doctor's office usually results in an additional trip to the blood test location.  Blood tests are then read by the doctor and a list is put on my electronic chart that adds my new results and compares my older results from as far back as I want to go.  The blood panel registers what the normal range for the various tests are (usually about 12 of these per panel), then they give my number.  If  it is out of range, it will have an additional comment about the degree to which it is out of range.  My doctor uses the blood report to keep on top of the medicine prescribed to me.  She can make adjustments to medicine or refer me for other tests. In this way, I have been able to keep myself out of the hospital and in good health.

Educational testing should be more like the blood test and the teacher and doctor should have the same role. The public thinks that the current state testing is the same as a blood test... and they would be wrong.  Although the state test does give scores in comparison to a person's past scores, it does not give a normal range - it is not a normed test.  It gives scores in relation to all the other test scores taken at the time in order to give rank.  The purpose of the state test is to let you know how you performed in relation to others as that relates to the predetermined rank for "passing," (which is not 70% by the way, but is variable from year to year ranging from 60-80%) and it does so without regard to the past or to an overall range of years.  It also fails to compare the scores from students in one state to students' scores in related subjects in other states (which is possible, contrary to what the state says).

Wouldn't it be better to expect to take a test in order to compare me with myself, and then have a teacher say, "In this skill for this subject you are out of norm.  Please do the following to try to get yourself back into the normal range."?  And like the doctor who advises the patient of how to get back into normal range, the advice contains what happens next (negatively) if you don't come into range.  Why, yes it would be better.

Instead, the state wants uniformity and mediocrity from its students.  If the state always uses one year at a time to show student scores on an adapted Bell Curve, it is very hard to show increase of an individual 's score from one year to the next.  Those at the top tend to stay at the top, those at the bottom tend to stay at the bottom, and the vast majority continue to remain in the middle.  That's what Bell Curves do, even adapted Bell Curves.

In addition, the state only tests over its own set standards.  In days past, the curriculum used was agreed upon subjects, but not exact subject matter.  Everyone should know a set of subjects.  Proficiency was gauged by the grading system of the schools.  Of course, that has its pitfalls, but not nearly as many pitfalls as telling what skills in what subject will be taught and tested at each grade level.  And, the skills supposedly increase in complexity grade level by grade level.  Nothing could straight-jacket the mind more than testing over a set standards that are leveled.  Creativity is completely stifled.  That process runs counter to everything cognitive scientists know about information development (synaptic formation) in the brain.

So a blood panel and monitoring for good health have nothing in common with education.  They should.  The goal of education should be the health of our youths' minds so they can compete in a global economy.  The model of having national or state standards, teaching those standards, then testing those same standards is circular reasoning.  The state's own graphs show a circular, or triangular, flow chart when they train new teachers on the need for standards.  The model has got to go.  A better model exists.