Toxic Culture of Education Katz 2

Now, how can we believe that a standardized test is the one that accurately measures student performance? How can we believe it measures student growth? that moment when the student's light bulb finally goes on, aha, that moment when a student says thank you for helping him graduate with a 2.0 GPA, how can we assign a number to that moment when a third grader grade finally has the ability to write his own name, who by the way has been labeled as a failure to himself, his teacher and his school, but we long for the standardization of

education

? We need these high-stakes tests because we devour the misinformation provided by these companies and policies using false validity of their test results.

Our testing

culture

begins in elementary school. My colleagues work with third graders. Third graders suffering from anxiety due to high-stakes testing. From a single-day, four-hour computer-based test, a student's future path is established, an academic identity is established, and a message is delivered loud and clear, whether or not you can achieve it and whatever happens. the teacher tells the student how good they are or what talents they have if the student doesn't score well on that high stakes test, the third graders know exactly what it means and they start to define themselves and it's starting to happen now in kindergarten, so We continue with this barrage of standardized tests and students continue to fail and districts have to continue with next initiatives that can solve the problems.

Who manufactures these products? Who creates these solutions? Our super villain private companies like Pearson and McGraw-Hill that operate. of policies and legislation written by nonprofits and lobbying groups like alec, the american legislative exchange council, buy the next textbook, buy the next workbook, buy the next digital software package, the next system teacher evaluation, I've read three algebra one textbooks in seven years and we still stick to standardized tests, guess who does them? In this

toxic

culture

, we illogically try to compare

education

to business.