Comment by nathan_long | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nathan_long | Hacker News Reader

I can't say whether the findings are correct or not, but I like this:

>> The teachers who seemed to be effective were, in fact, able to repeat those successes with different students in different years, the researchers found. Their students not only scored well on standardized exams but also were able to handle more complicated tests of their conceptual math knowledge and reading and writing abilities.

To everyone who keeps saying "standardized tests are bad", please cut it out. A particular code benchmark may be useless, but benchmarking overall is good. Existing standardized tests may be bad, but in general, having some way to make objective measurements and adjust accordingly is the basis of all human improvement.

And yes, we should reward good performance, if we can determine what good performance is. How else do you expect to get more of it? It is incredibly difficult to make incentives that actually do what you want rather than encourage gaming of the system, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

In short, let's stop debating whether we should measure and incentivize, and start debating how.

I grew up in the UK in a school where the emphasis of our entire education was "the test." Teachers entirely forgot how to teach a subject and our whole time was taken up with what essentially amounted to "test prep."

I did pass their tests, but did I get a good education? Frankly, no, I don't think I did. I mean statistically I got a great education, but it seems we have forgotten why we even educate to begin with...

Do we educate so people look smart on some random league table? Or do we educate so people are actually more well rounded, have a better grasp of the world around them, and do better as adults?

Or do we educate so people are actually more well rounded, have a better grasp of the world around them, and do better as adults?

I think we're all for this type of metric. The problem is that no one has yet been able to show a teacher's ability to achieve that.

So you're against testing. What metrics are you for? Do we at least agree that without any sort of metric to judge a good teacher vs a bad teacher that the whole educational system suffers tremendously?

I don't have the answers. I'm not even against testing. I've just seen the kind of damage overemphasis on testing can do to education and want to see it end.

When tests become a core part of how you judge someone's worth as an educator that educator is going to put all of their efforts into better test scores.

The question is do test scores mirror the quality of education or do test scores just tell you someone's potential at performing well on a test?

Well jeeeeeez! RTFA?

Testing is just one part of a three-pronged approach that the foundation is recommending. The other prongs involve classroom evaluations and student feedback.

I'm not sure that the argument is even that existing standardized tests are bad so much as that they are given too much priority. They should not be the only or primary means by which teachers, students, districts, etc are benchmarked (and in turn, rewarded or disciplined). "Teaching the test" is the problem, not necessarily the tests themselves.

Then why not use standardized tests for job interviews, or why don't decent universities use them? Standardized tests have serious disadvantages to consider, and aren't normally considered best-by-default.

There at least a couple obvious groups qualified to rate educational quality: teachers and students. If they happen to choose a standardized test to evaluate the education, then fine. Otherwise, I don't see standardized tests as obviously virtuous.

Don't confuse the government-mandated standardized tests with the SATs. They're not really out there to measure individual students. These tests are to ensure individual schools, districts, and states are giving the proper instruction to their students. They exist to make sure that Springfield High and Franklin High are both teaching the students the required material.

Universities do use standardized tests: they use the SATs and the ACTs, the GREs, LSATs, MCATs, Miller Analogies. They use AP exams to determine who gets college credit for courses the school never administered. They use their own standardized entrance exams for placement.

Further, many foreign nations (e.g. Japan, I think Singapore) have admission systems comprised entirely of standardized tests. Top 300 scorers get into college #1, 301-600 get into college #2, etc.

Then why not use standardized tests for job interviews

Because the government said it was illegal. (I'm simplifying, but look up Griggs v Duke.)

However, an employer can look at your college, and your college definitely can use your standardized test scores. So employers do use standardized tests, it just has to pass through a socially accepted filter first.

The problem with benchmarking is that it assumes all students are more or less equal. A measure that finds repeatable success for, say, 2/3s of the students will be model that will be emulated through the entire system to the detriment of the remaining 1/3 of students who do not learn under that environment.

Students are not a commodity. What works well for one person does not necessarily work well for another. Without focusing on the individual, you are always going to leave a group needlessly behind.

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