220: What do we do about standardized tests?

The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast

Jennifer Gonzalez

Education, Teaching, Instruction, Classroommanagement, Educationreform

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Standardized testing has, without a doubt, created a lot of problems in education, and far too often, our conversations about these problems end in statements like "we need to just get rid of them all" or "Oh well, nothing we can do to change things." In this episode, education researcher Jenn Binis joins me to talk about a different approach to solving the problems around standardized testing: moving away from all-or-nothing thinking and towards the idea of reducing harm. Jenn offers 5 specific strategies educators can take to make things better.

Thanks to NoRedInk and Edge•U Badges for sponsoring this episode.

Read Jenn's full blog post by going to cultofpedagogy.com/standardized-tests-what-to-do

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Jennifer Gonzales, welcoming you to episode 220 of the Cult of pedagogy podcast.
0:06.0	In this episode, we're going to talk about some actual steps we can take to deal with the big, problematic beast that has taken over our education
0:16.2	system, otherwise known as standardized testing. When we often end up pointing fingers at standardized testing is a major
0:38.0	culprit and there's a good reason for that. Standardized testing has
0:42.3	consumed an incredible amount of time, money, and energy
0:46.0	that could have been spent on other things.
0:48.0	It has changed the way many teachers teach and not for the better.
0:52.0	It has caused schools to be penalized in
0:54.8	ways that only exacerbate their existing problems. It has created a huge amount of
1:00.3	stress and anxiety and so on and so on and so on.
1:05.0	But when we do this finger pointing we usually stop right there.
1:10.0	We acknowledge that the testing is the problem,
1:13.6	and then we sort of shrug and say,
1:15.8	what are you going to do?
1:17.2	The problem seems too big and bureaucratic to solve,
1:20.7	so we just accept it and move on, and nothing really seems to change.
1:26.2	This frustrating state of inertia has always bothered me, and I sensed that surely someone
1:31.3	somewhere had to be tackling this problem with more creativity and determination
1:36.0	than I was aware of. So I sent out a tweet to see what I could learn. The tweet said this.
1:45.0	Two questions about standardized testing. One, are any states successfully moving to reduce the overall volume of their tests
1:50.0	and or lowering the stakes?
1:52.0	And two, are there any activist movements
	...

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