Why should education be a state controlled issue?

[BmorePat87]

(08-12-2016, 10:32 AM)fredtoast Wrote: Who wants a bunch of people who have the knowledge to give correct answers to questions.

It is much better for them to know "content" and give wrong answers, right?

Because memorizing the specific way that the test defines a vocabulary word won't get you as far in life as being able to critically read nonfictional text or construct an argumentative essay. This is why my midterm and final in US History are centered around analyzing documents related to each unit and answering questions related to them. Each set of documents then has an essay prompt and students choose 2 of the 10 to respond to. I want to measure these skills.

It also perpetuates the notion that standardize testing is the best metric for measuring a student's performance or the growth of a school, something that is completely at odds with what every single teacher learns. Which gets us back to my point about the needs of students varying. This is why teachers are trained to try to focus on differentiated instruction. We know students do not learn the same way. They also do not demonstrate what they know the same way. I try to offer a variety in my exit tickets after a lesson. This could mean choosing between drawing a political cartoon or answering a prompt with a short paragraph. If you think every kid chooses to draw, you'd be wrong.