It's probably just that the post-test-crap : pre-test-crap is much lower than 1.

This is the same approach taken by the students: they stop studying for the big exam once the big exam is over.


DRTFA

Now they can get back to more important matters like nailing the students...DUH!

I thought teaching stopped after the standardized tests were finished in March. Those tests, after all, are the only true measure of growth, student success and teacher value.

One of the reasons I loved AP classes in highschool. As soon as you finished the AP test class was basically over, most teachers didn't give a fark afterwards and just had fun with it.

/probably learned more in those few weeks than the year before.

We obviously need moar testing.

-1

Any "article" that begins w/ "As far as I can tell," is mental toilet paper.

As someone who teaches both AP and regular high school classes, I'll admit that I do ease up on the AP kids once the tests are over. However, the way I look at is that those kids did 10 months of work in 9 (probably even more than 10 months worth), so they deserve a bit of a break and a celebration at the end.

It's what they look forward to--the time where we can watch the documentaries we didn't have time to watch during the rest of the year and discuss them without an exam looming over our heads. Plus, with the amount of activities that go on at the end of the year, it's rare you see much of the AP kids anyways\ since they're the overachievers organizing prom and Grad Nite and everything else.

That's especially true in Texas now, after the TAKS tests. If you get great grades all year long, but fail the TAKS, you have to retake that year. If you have shiatty grades, but do great on the TAKS, you can pass. So the state now makes the decisions for the schools that used to be called 'grades'.

Thank you, No Child Left Behind.

rockin_science: -1

Any "article" that begins w/ "As far as I can tell," is mental toilet paper.

As far as I can tell, I agree with you.

I loved my college classes in high school. I wish I had taken more.

[Note: Mine were not AP - they were college classes. We had an agreement with several local universities.]

the last month of my senior year consisted of parties, planning for parties, and pranking shenanigans. As it should be. All the tests are out of the way, you've sent applications to a job or college, and there's a good chance you and your friends will go their separate ways.

Let them party, fark you if you think otherwise. Just because you've got a taxpayer's persecution complex doesn't mean the students can't enjoy themselves before they go off to college, fark.

Shadowe: One of the reasons I loved AP classes in highschool. As soon as you finished the AP test class was basically over, most teachers didn't give a fark afterwards and just had fun with it.

/probably learned more in those few weeks than the year before.

So maybe they should give the test in October so the kids would have even more of the year to actually learn something?

/Teaching to the test is driving our education system into the ground. The future needs critical thinking, not rote memorization. The Brits are even finally starting to recognize that, just as we move towards their bass-akwards system.

If only we paid our teachers more

Mike_LowELL: I am happy that my teachers taught me to the test for three reasons. Firstly, standardized testing is good. It is a way of measuring the success of our students in schools. Second off, it makes teachers accountable. They have to teach properly or they will get fired. Last of all, it helps the school earn money. If I do good on the test, the school is rewarded, and I want them to be rewarded for teaching me what I need to know in order to succeed. All in all, standardized testing is good.

Bold part made me LOL

My high school must have been on a different calendar back then because our AP exams were held during the 2 weeks before the last day of school. I remember even taking the economics exam 2 days before graduation. Each AP class had maybe 5 or 6 days of nothing before school ended.

i flip go-karts: As someone who teaches both AP and regular high school classes, I'll admit that I do ease up on the AP kids once the tests are over. However, the way I look at is that those kids did 10 months of work in 9 (probably even more than 10 months worth), so they deserve a bit of a break and a celebration at the end.

It's what they look forward to--the time where we can watch the documentaries we didn't have time to watch during the rest of the year and discuss them without an exam looming over our heads. Plus, with the amount of activities that go on at the end of the year, it's rare you see much of the AP kids anyways\ since they're the overachievers organizing prom and Grad Nite and everything else.

Yup. When my APs were done we covered the "fun stuff" that we didnt have time to do beforehand.

Im fine with it.

Yep I just asked my daughter she has been watching movies in class since te tests were over.

This is what happens when you use standardized tests as the sole measure of a teacher's performance. As long as kids are passing the tests, there is no need to give a shiat about anything else.

stirfrybry: If only we paid our teachers more

Not sure if you are being sarcastic but I actually totally agree if we paid teachers more you'd get better results. If the ranks of teachers are filled with people that just couldn't get a better job you aren't going to get very good teachers. In Florida the average teacher salary is $46k. That doesn't sound terrible but you need to remember teachers are people with advanced university degrees (bachelors + teachers college afterwards). I really don't want teachers making the same as an unskilled laborer in a factory.

Teacher/student impregnation ratio is the only real measure of student improvement and growth.

The "stop teaching" thing happens in both Fairfax and Price William Counties in Virginia.

Mike_LowELL: I am happy that my teachers taught me to the test for three reasons. Firstly, standardized testing is good. It is a way of measuring the success of our students in schools. Second off, it makes teachers accountable. They have to teach properly or they will get fired. Last of all, it helps the school earn money. If I do good on the test, the school is rewarded, and I want them to be rewarded for teaching me what I need to know in order to succeed. All in all, standardized testing is good.

Most teachers gave a crap about teaching before hand?

You do have it weird. When the final exams come around in Britain back in the early 90s we just turned up only for the exams and as soon as we were done we didn't bother going in anymore. It meant you had an extra month off before going on to your A-Levels. Of course back then we didn't do things like graduation ceremonies and stuff for anything below a Bachelor's level nor the proms and all that other jibba jabba that has recently been imported.

Mike_LowELL: I am happy that my teachers taught me to the test for three reasons. Firstly, standardized testing is good. It is a way of measuring the success of our students in schools. Second off, it makes teachers accountable. They have to teach properly or they will get fired. Last of all, it helps the school earn money. If I do good on the test, the school is rewarded, and I want them to be rewarded for teaching me what I need to know in order to succeed. All in all, standardized testing is good.

I've learned on Fark that holding teachers accountable is bad.

Wow homeschoolers do get more of an education... My kids have school all year round... 4 hours a day 5 days a week.

We have sundays not snowdays...

I teach AP classes and we're still doing new material, so I'm getting a kick...

Our AP exam was 5/9. Their last test will be 5/24. Labs are due 5/27.

/yes, we will watch movies after that.

Bullshait. Our kids finished testing last week and still have the same amount of homework.

I took six AP classes my senior year. After the tests were over, good times were had by all. No one had a problem with this. Students saw it as kind of a reward for working so hard all year, knowing it'd probably be the last of this type of reward we'd ever get. Teachers took it as a much needed break after actually working hard all year. And with the question of college credit already decided, parents couldn't if we didn't learn anything new that last month.

Some of my teachers did do projects and various course-related activities, but it was much more relaxed and students had a good time. Again, it was all good times. Some of my best high school memories happened in that last month.

Because kids will surely show up, be attentive, and complete homework after the point where it counts. Has this mother met a Highschooler before?

Middle School science teacher here...

The situation is actually worse, at least in my case. In my school, the kids are administered two district-level tests in my subject. One in November, one in late March. All of my performance pay is based on growth between these two tests.

This means that I am penalized for anything the kids learn between August and November, and I am not credited for anything they learn in April or May.

I've always made my target numbers. (Just typing that sentence nauseates me.) But I'm sorely tempted to show movies for the first three months, teach for four months, and play games for the rest of the year. By designing the system this way, I'm practically being directed to do this.

I don't. Once I realized how silly it all was in my second year of teaching, I just decided I wouldn't even concern myself with the tests. I start teaching on Day 1, and continue through the last day of school. To be sure, I save more of the "fun" activities for this time of year as many of the kids have already checked out and I need to work harder to keep them engaged.

The funny thing is I see scores from other schools in my district and can tell that they either all have Harry Wong in their science departments, or they're gaming the system. My kids score higher overall on the tests, but theirs show phenomenal growth, which is all that matters. In the unlikely event they have to start firing science teachers, I'll be one of the first to go, even though my students have demonstrated that they know more science than other kids in the district.

I don't know how to design a system to measure a teacher. Putting an administrator in the back of my class twice a year is no better.

What school is really about.

Parents shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that union teachers don't give a crap about teaching once the state tests are completed and can't be fired under any circumstances

Fixed that for reality.

attention span of a retarded fruit fly: Wow homeschoolers do get more of an education... My kids have school all year round... 4 hours a day 5 days a week.

We have sundays not snowdays...

I bet they learned that the teacher is 'tarded.

Ed Finnerty: rockin_science: -1

Any "article" that begins w/ "As far as I can tell," is mental toilet paper.

As far as I can tell, I agree with you.

Lois Solomon is a lazy thinker - sounds like a lazy soccer mom with nothing to do but complain all day. 159 biatchey whiney blog posts. some other jewels include telling her kids they can't afford school led trips. hey Lois how about them getting a farking job like i did! earned $1800 1979 dollars by myself to travel overseas w/ the school. in one summer because my parents showed me how to get what i want and not be a lazy whiney idiot.

link goes to her posts takes a while to load them all because they suck so much
Link (new window)

attention span of a retarded fruit fly: Wow homeschoolers do get more of an education... My kids have school all year round... 4 hours a day 5 days a week.

We have sundays not snowdays...

I've always wonder when it comes to home schooling if the one on one attention makes up for the lack of pedagogy and subject knowledge. I personally would never consider teaching English or history since my training and education is all in math and sciences. Never really went along with the stay one day ahead of the class theory.

Aulus: Frankly, in the last two weeks of May, you have to choose your battles, as no matter what you do as a teacher, the kids are going to blow it off if it even remotely like work.

Thank you. At a certain point, every teacher has to realize that he is flogging a dead horse. When you hit that point, you stop. This happens regardless of what grade level you are teaching (even college), what subject you are teaching, and whether or not there are tests/grades on the line.

At the places I've taught, we were not allowed to go on field trips, watch movies or do fun things until after the test. If there is any money left over, the fun happens in the last 3 weeks and the kids go haywire.

The high stakes culture doesn't really encourage balancing fun and learning.

Krieghund: AP tests aren't the same thing as state tests.

TFA is talking about AP tests, which are to get college credit for an advance high school class. What they mean is the student did a whole semester's worth of college work in the months before the exam.

When I was in high school in the early 90s, we did the exact same thing. We worked :"really hard" in the months before the exam, and did nothing after.

I think we got a day of playing croquet with our AP US History teacher, but otherwise we just moved on to a more lazy study of post-war US history, which wasn't on the exam. It was the same in my other AP classes: we did more low pressure stuff, but it was still relevant. Maybe our teachers realized that it's boring to just watch movies all day.

Thanks, No Child Left Behind and Standardized Test nazis!

LawrencePerson: Parents shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that union teachers don't give a crap about teaching once the state tests are completed and can't be fired under any circumstances

Fixed Trolled that for reality lulz.

That movie is docufiction.