Thread: End-of-course tests

Educators are teaching the tests! It's unfortunate but true. In some states, the teacher's name is printed in the newpaper if his/her students don't make the expected scores on the EOC tests. When it gets to be that personal, you teach the test, only the test, and nothing but the test.

The saddest part of all this is that those tests started out being minimum competency tests in the subject area. Now they have become the ceiling to which students are being held accountable. Good students are held back because so much time, energy and funding are going to trying to get the do-nothing students to pass a test.

Most teachers I talk to have given up and just teach to the test now. They'd like to do more, but with their job performance depending on student performance, teaching to the test is understandable.

Around this time of the year it seems like we are always encouraged to start teaching the test. We have fewer field trips, fewer hands-on activities and less science and social studies instruction. They push us to focus on math and reading comprehension because those types of questions make up a huge portion of the test.

We're still learning new material, but every Friday we play a review game that covers the entire course and helps them start remembering what they need for the final. We already had the standardized test for the year so at least we don't have to worry about that.