Dumbing down our math tests?
Summary: The BBC is reporting on a trend in UK standardized math tests towards "easier, shallower and less demanding" examinations. Here in Massachusetts, I was working with our school psychologist to identify new interventions for special education students based on their standardized test scores.
The BBC is reporting on a trend in UK standardized math tests towards "easier, shallower and less demanding" examinations. Here in Massachusetts, I was working with our school psychologist to identify new interventions for special education students based on their standardized test scores. However, as she pointed out, when identifying low performers, we are supposed to compare kids to the state average, not an absolute right or wrong.
The UK study found that
there was a steep decline in standards from 1990 onwards, once GCSEs [General Certificates of Secondary Education] were introduced, it says.
The content became broader and shallower, with a more restricted and less demanding syllabus, it claims.
And the difficulty and demand of questions weakened along with their style, it claims, with candidates being required to follow a series of steps rather than work their own way through.
Calculators were also allowed in some papers and formulae sheets were included in papers.
This same complaint has certainly been heard in the States, while many Asian nations are focusing on a greater depth of fundamental understanding in mathematics. A quick look at the Massachusetts state frameworks for math education show a lot of content that must be covered almost superficially from elementary grades through high school to meet all of the subject matter requirements (our state's standardized tests, which students must pass to graduate, are based on the frameworks).
So are we dumbing down our tests in favor of increased content coverage? Are we replacing necessary depth and critical problem solving with just a whole lot of calculator-driven math? I'm inclined to think so. Talk back below and let us know what you think.
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Talkback
Two factors at work.
And, two, the old adage: Those who can, do; those who can't,
teach. You and I both know there's more than a little truth in that
saying.
Combine the two, mix in a little union, and a little socialist
government, and you get a recipe for anything it takes to make
the students feel, and the teacher look, good.
2+2=5 as long as....
Yep!
You nailed it!
not sure that is entirely it...
The thing is, I knew more than my children at each of their ages, and I also went to school longer per day, with fewer breaks. I do think that is part of the problem. Also, here in California, teachers have so many days off that its a contest to see whether there are more 'In Service Days' or national holidays that get celebrated.
Then these teachers have the temerity to ask for more money, comparing themselves to workers who work 40+ hours, when they work 3/4 of a normal work week, at best.
Republican party is turning socialist, too.
Parroting dogma isn't confined to liberalism, my friend...
How many hours is your work week? Any vacation or sick time benefits? Comp time? Thank a union.
Unions were devised at a time when corporations were pigs.
Yes, unions have gotten piggy too.
If corporations respected work and the profits generated from it, work wouldn't be of such ****ty quality and the workers would be happier.
And principals often push people along for the sake of their schools, while hiring idiot teachers (who don't even know what they can't do) and let students act like little vermin.
If you want a sweatshop of a country, you can have it. I'll be a part of a civilized, Christian society - thanks anyway.
Pretty sophisticated marxist rant
"If corporations respected work and the profits generated from it,
work wouldn't be of such ****ty quality and the workers would be
happier"
Now for reality: You aren't worth as much as you think you are.
Stop blaming someone else for it and make yourself more
valuable instead.
re two factors at work
Failure is no longer an option: Whereas when I went to school, I knew that I would face serious lifetime consequences should I fail, students now know that they can resit again and again - some exams are so modular that you can just resit the section that you failed. Equally, there is real pressure on teachers to constantly increase standards - so much so that OFSTED (the official inspection agency) consider that it is a teacher's fault for letting a student fail, rather than the student's fault for failing to do the work. (students are aware of this, too - It is hugely irritating to be confronted by students who know that you can't afford (either financially - performance related pay - or professionally - being placed under competency measures) not to give them considerably more "guidance" and "support" than you may feel comfortable with).
Combine this with the frantic pressure to maintain the school's place in published league tables for tests (with the funding implications that being successful carries with it) and you get a situation where teachers are put in the position of teaching to the test rather than the broader curriculum needs of the students.
Many high schools now re-test all students on entry; the primary schools do their statutory national tests at the end of the students sojourn, but increasingly it has been found that the ability to get a level 5 maths signifies ... that you are good at passing maths tests, and NOT that you can do maths out of the context of a maths test!
You are wrong.
Teachers HATE this feelgood crap foisted on us by the system, but until we are allowed to tell parents and their kids that they are sub-standard without fear of reprisal, what can we do? If too many kids fail the test, you don't hear that Johnny isn't working hard enough, instead, the news reports say schools are failing and teachers get blamed. Then they throw money at the districts to train us to be better teachers and buy us more technology. Then, when we do the new stuff and Johnny still doesn't get it because he is too busy playing soccer and Nintendo, we get blamed again, and schools get threatened with budget cuts and shutdowns. Meanwhile, Johnny has graduated and is now driving a truck, making more money at 20 years of age than the teachers who tried to teach him math will see until their 10th year of teaching. And he hears in the news that schools are still failing. And he agrees because those kids from Taiwan keep outscoring us. But no one ever notices that those kids taking the tests in Taiwan are the cream of the crop, the rest are in sweatshops making shoes for Nike, while we in America are busy making sure no child is left behind; or as we say in education, No Child Gets Ahead.
You want to blame someone, look in the mirror, look at the people who passed the stupid laws and the people who elected them; and then look at TV and tell me what we as a society value; because it sure isn't education.
RE: Dumbing down our math tests?
A friend of mine (she's Slovak) taught English and Biology at two different private, semi-elite, high school in Britain. She was appalled by the curriculum as kids were not taught why two particular molecules react in the way they react - they just had to know what's the color of the resulting substance. That's not chemistry, that's rubbish. She tought same in Slovakia, so she surely could compare.
I don't want to brag, but an average college student of math or chemistry in US/Canada would struggle to keep up in the second grade of high school in Slovakia. This is not hear-say "evidence", this is based on real-life experiences of exchange students, visiting lecturers and kids of diplomats and other foreign workers.
Dumbing down the whole education
What a load of *********!
At some point you have to understand a TECHNICAL subject in [i]depth[/i]. Broad understanding might be OK for humanities or arts, but sciences and engineering hinge on a through and detailed understanding of the subject.
I have interviewed candidates for programming jobs who can discuss the ideas of classes, data normalization and programming - but only at what I would call the "book review" level. The minute you give them a task that requires even moderate competence it precipitates a crisis.
This "broad education" lunacy is failing the students as well as failing society.
One thing...
Other than that, a pet rant of mine is that I think modern industry (particularly software) has lost the plot in terms of what they should expect from someone they're hiring. People seem to think that a new hire can magically become fully functional without any guidance and training in how things are done, especially if they're fresh out of college.
old story
Losing site of the long term goal.
Some colleges and universities such as Worcester Polytechnic Institute are throwing those SAT's out the window in favor of a project based history or portfolio from students to gain admission. Those k-12 schools instill a love of learning for students to produce those projects along the way... but
I"m probably preaching to the choir..
good topic.
Or short term profits.
Sorry to sound cynical, but it does happen.
Besides, as everybody knows, it's not what you know - it's who you know. One can have the IQ of 70 but still have great social skills (and lack of ethics) and end up with a far more successful life than someone with an IQ of 150...
Yep
a TelePrompTer and have a few people faint during your
speeches.
RE: Dumbing down our math tests?
RE: Dumbing down our math tests?
I work in the power generation industry and often find that the new 'bright boys and girls' that join as apprentices, or the even 'brighter boys and girls' that enter as graduates, cannot handle the maths that I had to understand at the age of 16.
True the scope of some subjects have widened but maths involves the same operations. The current methods of solving some problems is different but my way seems more straight forward if you understand the basics. Many cannot calculate without a calculator and even then finish up with an error factor of 10 +6
(ie: 1,000,000), cannot understand logariths, the multiplication of indices by addition, etc. and as for negative numbers, most don't go there. Don't mention the Calculus! Half of my curriculum seems missing from today's subjects yet our government and the teachers keep telling us that the standards are rising. I disagree with their findings.
Tedscribe
UK exam standards
I should say although I teach in an English school I'm Scottish - and came through a system which was a good deal different. My degree is Pure Maths. By interest and job function, I'm into IT.
Firstly a history lesson: England used to have a 2-tier education system. Grammar schools took pupils whose aim was University or going directly into a managerial job. These students sat O-levels and then A-levels. Secondary Modern schools took the remainder, and while some good students could still get to university, the aim was to provide the rest with a decent education aimed at going straight into employment at age 16. Those students took CSEs or vocational qualifications. The sheep and the goats were separated at age 11.
Along came comprehensive schools catering for all standards. GCSEs eventually replaced O-levels and CSEs. Therefore you had one exam structure trying to service all markets. In recognition that not everyone could cope with the 'intellectual' approach to eduction, Vocational qualifications (NVQ and BTEC and others) were invented. There are matches agains various grades in GCSEs or A-levels so in theory you can compare students with different qualifications.
We now have an A-level system where each course is modular; rather than sitting your maths exam at the end of two years you can sit exams in a combination of modules repeatedly over the same period. The syllabus content became far more prescriptive at the same time. You now have mark inflation, and hence grade boundary inflation, and universities find that an A-pass is now no guarantee of expertise. A basic A-pass is probably about the same as a good C when I started teaching.
In the USA, university entrance is based on SATs. Not so in the UK; entrance is based on A-levels, and you require decent GCSEs to be allowed to sit A-levels.
A-levels are graded ABCDE but good universities are only interested in AB, and the best only in A. Students typically sit three or four subjects. Oxford and Cambridge will therefore want AAA students. There are now so many A-grade students that Universities can go longer use an A as an arbiter. The government is intoducing an A* pass for the very best. It'll probably be the equivalent of an A when I started teaching.
The whole business - selectivity versus comprehensive education, differentiation between state school pupils and private schools, and event the existence of private schools - is intensely political. Government wants Universities to set the bar higher for privately educated students because they have been better educated, which doesn't mean they're necessarily more intelligent. Universities resist to some extent but are forced to toe the line through capitation grants which may not be made available.
Universities complain that students aren't properly prepared. Schools complain that they are required to teach syllabuses to university-standard students which don't properly prepare them. The exam boards don't complain out loud but have to set exams and create syllabuses to criteria from an organisation called the QCA. That's where government comes back into the frame: the dead hand on the tiller.
There are alternative qualifications not controlled by QCA. There are IGCSE exams, aimed at foreign students wanting to follow the British system, used extensively in India and the Far East. They are more difficult - they don't involve much examined coursework for example. Many private schools now make students sit IGCSEs instead: they are a better preparation for A-level. When the government publishes statistics it bars IGCSE and refuses to provide funding to state schools for such courses. If you examine Government statistics it looks like our students have got zero passes in Maths, English and Sciences - whereas our students get such good results it puts us in the top bracket of UK private schools.
There is also the International Baccalaureate. We think of ourselves as increasingly international, and while most students come from the UK, we have students from all round the world. Many countries don't have a clue how the UK educational system works (if you have read this far you now have a rather jaundiced take on it), but especially in Europe and Asia they understand the IB. I believe the IB is a course with breadth, depth and has maintained its standards over the years. Their syllabuses may change but exams remain the same standard and are not driven by any government ideology. The IB is an international organisation belonging to no-one except perhaps the schools who use it. I believe IB students will find university entrance easier, will be better prepared for it and are more likely to be able to apply to universities outside the UK.
This doesn't address the needs of school leavers at age 16 going straight into business. That's partly because almost all our students will do a good degree before going on to a career. I realise most US kids don't leave school until later, and a larger proportion than in the UK go to College. The UK is trying to follow the same trend. Yet businesses in the USA seem to have the same problems with new employees as Tedscribe describes in the UK.
Compare this with India. Large numbers receive a poor education, India being a poor country. Yet many receive a very strong traditional education, especially in English, Maths, the Sciences and IT. Students aged 15/16 will be on to Calculus, and in IT they will be taught programming rather than MS Office skills. India has a burgeoning IT industry and has produced more than its share of top-notch mathematicians. In the UK and USA we have difficulty in persuading enough students to do university courses in Maths, IT, Science, and industry has difficulty in finding good candidates in those areas plus engineering. What does that tell you?
UK Exam Standards
I was one of the "11-plus" failures.
I went to a Secondary Modern School. There, thanks to some dedicated teachers, I passed the Technical College exam after 2 years. At the 'Tech' (incidentally it later changed to Poly-technical and now is part of a University - dumbing up or down?) and achieved ONC in both Mechanical & Electrical Engineering in 1959.
Went into an apprenticeship scheme that included continued education and so achieved HNC in Mechanical Engineering in 1961. I achieved Chartered Engineer status in 1971. The last 24 years I have worked overseas in Gas-petroleum-chemical construction. All from beingan'11+' failure and some (pardon me) dam good teachers.
I believe I have done their dedication justice and, for myself, try to follow in their footsteps by passing on my knowledge.
Those were the days!
Now I hear that some university hopefuls can not even spell!