Dare To Ask Talk And News About Our Differences 
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I couldn’t agree more with what you’re saying, Melodie. I can also provide some insight as to why those standardized tests are necessary, because I’m a high school teacher who has a lot of experience with standardized testing. Especially here in California, voters/politicians/etc. demand that schools be ‘accountable’ for our students’ learning. This ends up being very messy because it’s very difficult to test learning reliably, assuming we even know what ‘learning’ is or looks like. It seems to me that standardized tests favor those with good memories for details and some test-taking skill more than they really report whether anyone has ‘learned’ certain concepts or not. To me, learning involves synthesis and making connnections between ideas, disciplines, etc., and standardized tests can’t really test this. Nor can they often test UNDERSTANDING. You can know an awful lot of facts about American history without really UNDERSTANDING it. I’m not sure I believe that real learning can be quantified. Also, since there are millions of kids, they have to use a form of test that’s relatively easy to grade. You can’t sit down individually with every kid and ask him/her, ‘What do you know about grammar/spelling/vocabulary/history/literature?’ The only way to show that a kid has ‘learned’ something is to show that s/he has higher test scores at the END of the year than at the beginning. And that’s what the public seems to want to see–I’m not sure! They keep voting for that, anyway!!!!!! If only they would give me a smaller class and more time, I *would* be able to sit down with each kid individually. But with 5 classes of 35-40 students each, it’s impossible. I’m lucky if I can get through a basic 2-page essay in one piece. This is an interesting site! I found it when I was looking for some materials on ‘stereotypes’ for my kids. j.
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Name : Josephine, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Lesbian, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Agnostic, Age : 33, City : San Francisco, State : CA, Country : United States, Occupation : Teacher, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,
