I'm not sure what you are saying here, If it's the English teacher would not pass the AP Stats final, you are right they would not. I'm not sure half the math teachers would either.

However, if you are saying the English teacher can't solve this question from Math PRAXIS 2

X+2=5 What is x? He will.

I don't think I'd pass the Psychics or Bio AP finals either. I probably would have in 1971.

There is much emphasis on learning styles and Gardner's 7-9 intelligences and Bloom's Taxonomy and you see the differentiated instruction up through middle school.

Once in high school it is pretty much you chose your path as long as you meet the state requirements. Absegami had a very large and intricate vocational car repair program and a studio art emphasis. Many of my students were engaged in coming to school becaused they liked the dance program which was enmeshed in the Phys Ed department.

A big reason we are making little progress on this thread is that we are having trouble separating the idea of standards from standardized tests.

I wish I had known there was an AP test for Psychics- oh wait- I guess I wouldn't have passed. (just a very little humor)

Aah!!!! A little smart ass here. LOL!!!! I have enough of that from my entitled community collegers.

We aren't going to make a lot of progress here, because it's a broad issue.

I think most are complaining because the educators are spending a month preparing for the standardized tests where the students aren't learning new material, but I may counter that they may be. They didn't get it the first time so they might actually be learning now for the first time.

That senior SRA class I babbled about when I was interning for Ed Psych was entirely preparing for the HSPT because they failed in their junior year. Without demonstrating that they can do x+3=5 these kids were NOT getting a diploma.

We're talking public school, not college.
While on the subject of English, I could easily point out spelling and grammar mistakes in about 50% of the posts here.
The sad reality is that those who actually earn a living with the English language (reporters, columnists etc.) are even worse.
To be honest, my own writing is somewhat shoddy since proper grammar, punctuation, correct sentence structure and such require far greater verbiage than I'm willing to contribute.

So am I. Absegami is a high school in NJ where I taught three sections of Transitional Math, one section of Geometry and and one of AP Stats for one year.

I had to take three semesters of Teaching Education coursework and take the PRAXIS 2 Exam to be certified to teach Mathematics in NJ. I did not like teaching at a high school level so I left after one year.

I presently teach Social Work Skills, College Skills and General Psych at the local community college. I am also a hospital social worker on weekends.

Doesn't it depend on what the testing is for?
When I went to school (a long time ago I admit), we did 3 standardised tests over our total school career. The first was at the transition from primary school to high school (no junior high here) and was used to roughly sort the students into more academic and less academic groups. Our first year in high school had a common curriculum, but after that first year we had the choice between various options. Maths, English and some level of Science were all compulsary (although there were different levels available in these), but there was a range of other options. So, for example, I also did "Descriptive Geometry and Drawing", 'History" and "Geography" (I now wish I'd done one of the languages, but there you go). We did exams at the end of each year, but they were set by the school.
Then, at year 10, we did another set of state wide standardised exams in the particular subjects we had taken. This was called the "School Certificate" and was the basic qualification necessary to take on a trade. In those days many of the students left school after those exams (aged about 16). For the rest of us who stayed, the results of that standardised exam gave us some indication of the areas we should specialise in over the next two years (It wasn't all that useful for me though, since I was one of the 2 students who got 6 A's).

At the end of the next two years we sat for the final standardised test - the Higher School Certificate - which was really a University entrance qualification, but was strictly subject based. I'd opted for a highly specialised set of options and only did 4 subjects Maths, Science, English and Geography, all at their highest levels, but others opted to take a range of up to six at lower levels.

On the basis of those results I gained a traineeship which paid for my university fees and gave me a (barely) living allowance. So, I set off to university to study Electrical Engineering (another mistake).

The thing about all all those standardised tests was that they were serious exams. None of them were multiple choice. In the English exam, for example, you had to write essays on the novels, plays and poetry you had studied. In Maths you had to solve problems and were marked not only on getting the solution correct but on the way you had arrived at your solutions, so you could get high marks even if you didn't get the right answer. Obviously the marking of these exams was a long and expensive process and many of the teachers who had been teaching the higher level classes went to Sydney to be involved in the marking.

But, as far as I am aware, the results of those exams were never used to evaluate the performance of individual teachers or schools. They were about evaluating the academic abilities of individual students and helping to match those students to later careers (another joke in my case, since I ended up doing something totally different). And I can't see a problem with that.

On the other hand I would seriously object to a frquent set of multiple choice tests being used to evaluate school or teacher performance, particularly if its in any way tied to funding, or where those "evaluations" were publicised, leading to the whole "good school", "bad school" hierarchy, which is, after all, self-perpetuating.

Is it just that I was brought up in a very different system?

I would guess you could find grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure mistakes in greater than 50 percent of the posts.

We post on the run, and it's just not a priority on message boards.

CM, I see it more as a very different time than a very different system ~ while there has always been standardized testing here, it's only the last maybe 10-12 years or so that the focus became so targeted ~ I'd peg it around the time that No Child Left Behind was enacted ~ and test scores most definitely form the basis for "good school/bad school" syndrome ~

Sooz

We had the same type of system but with one less year, CM.
Apparently it worked pretty well since there weren't shortages of prefessionals or trades people.
And, they were far more motivated than we are today. Doing a good job of it was the expectation, not the exception.

Well, we still have essentially the same system, but there are some idiots around who want to have comparative rankings of performance in the HSC Published ....

just a lighter note:

I was doing oral interviews today with my kidlets, asking them questions about what they knew about the seasons (our latest science unit). So I asked a boy what a farmer does in spring, summer, fall, and winter. He said:

In the spring the farmer puts seeds in the ground. In the summer he waters the plants as they get big. In the fall he picks the food. In the winter, he goes into his house, makes dinner, turns the heat on, and plays video games.

My smile for the day.

Poor farmers' wives.