Being an education major as well as having a wife and many friends who are also teachers in the public school systems, I feel like talking about the Standards of Learning Tests (SOL's) and the No Child Left Behind Act and perhaps get a few other peoples opinion on this topic. The SOL testing is a Virginia Public School school program, it sets forth learning and achievement expectations for grades kindergarten through twelfth. These standards are a direct result of the No Child Left Behind Law that was passed by President George W. Bush back in 2000. The tests measure student performance in English, Mathematics, Science, and History. In order to graduate from high school students must pass a specific number of SOL tests in each of the four target areas, in order to pass an SOL a student must score a 66%.
This is where my first problem with the SOL testing arises. Its not very hard to pass a multiple choice test when you only need a 66% to pass test. In every school I have ever been enrolled in a 66% is at best a D if not an F, and in my opinion neither of those should be a passing grade. The purpose of No Child Left Behind was to ensure that all students receiving public education are receiving the same type of education. What type of message are we sending to children if you are telling them that they can pass a test with a 66%?
My other problem with the SOL testing is that the entire school year is spent teaching to the test and not necessary focusing on aspects of the course that may help the child later on in life after graduation. The school systems only care that their students pass this test so they do not lose Federal funding. To me if your trying to make sure that "No Child is Left Behind", it would make more sense to teach the children things they will actually use in their life's rather than something that is only going to help them on a standardized test.
These tests are so important to the schools that they are even willing to let students who have failed a class, receive a passing grade for the year if they can pass the SOL testing for the class. Yes, you heard me right, a student who failed all four nine weeks will be given a passing grade for the year if they pass their SOL. As I previously mentioned my wife and a lot of friends are teachers in public schools and I know of more of than one school that this has occurred at. What does it tell a child when the school administrates are willing to let a child who failed a class simply slide on by just because they were able to get a 66% on a multiple choice test. When something like this happens it appears to me that these children are still being left behind, but its being covered up by the administration because they are not really learning the material. I don't claim to know the answer to what needs to be done with public education, but this clearly is not working.
I can agree that the Standard of Learning is set extremely low. It doesn't help those who can learn more and want to really reach their maximum, but I can also see part of why they thought it was a god idea. I think that because kids are forced into school a lot of them don't really care because it wasn't their choice. For these kids that don't want to learn, it may be nearly impossible for them ever get out of public school without dropping out if the tests were too hard, but that also can lead into whether or not they are so unmotivated because the standards allow it. Also, a unified knowledge base for people can help people problem solve together I think, instead of having a bunch of people with different educations trying to understand why each person is thinking they are right. If they didn't have some common knowledge it would make it hard for people to where other people got their ideas.
ReplyDeleteI guess what I'm getting at is I agree that the standards are too low and it does limit the amount of learning that a kid can get at school. I want to try to find a way to defend our education system because its the system I went through, but it's very hard, which probably explains why my arguments are a little weak.
I completely agree with you. The SOL's that are given could be taken at the beginning of the year and you could easily pass them without learning anything in the class. I could take all of the SOL's half asleep and pass advanced. Like you said, it really defeats the purpose of the program.
ReplyDeleteOne of my biggest complaints while I was in school was how we only learned things to pass the SOL's or to pass the IB/AP tests. It was never about learning for the sake of learning, which always limited us to how much the teachers could teach us.
I hope there is a change to education soon. It would be great to see kids actually learning and applying them to real life. It's what I would want not only for myself, but for my siblings.
I also completely agree, it wasn't exactly the hardest thing to do to pass the SOL's. The only challenge I got in high school was from the AP courses I took and I felt like I learned more in that class because those teachers weren't restricted by the SOL curriculum.
ReplyDeleteAlso with my mom being a teacher and several of my high school teachers that I still stay in contact with, I never hear the end of how SOL's are ruining the kid's education because it isn't teaching them anything.
I know that this happened in many occasions, but teaching to the curriculum was never a problem for me.
ReplyDeletePossibly because of the classes I was in, we always did whatever we wanted and were expected to learn a lot of the SOL material on the way-and then get a 600.
Many times we learned for the sake of learning. As much as I hated his class, my AP Calculus teacher never did much in regards to teaching what would be on the AP exam.
I had the second highest grade in the class and got a 1 on the exam.
In middle school, I went to an awful school- not to say it was awful, but their standards were very low. They transferred the gifted program to the school so they would pass county and state requirements. Many other students barely passed the SOL, and needed the extreme focus on what would be on that test.
Separately, I think you need to look at the SOL thing again. I wouldn't blame it on No Child Left Behind.
When that was formulated, I believe I lived in New York. There, we had an ELA (similar to the SOL) for fourth graders. And that was created far before Bush was president.
Also, I know the REGENTS exams have been around for YEARS.
My dad took them in high school.