Late in the month of October, on the 26th, one of my classmates blog entry certainly caught my eye. However it was the subject at hand that reeled myself in to further analyize what he was discussing. This article, " Texas Announces New Education Reforms" talks about the new STAAR program for students that are still in High School. With further reading I honestly couldn't agree more, because in a way it kind of hits me in a personal matter. Well more so the TAKS which has now been re-named STAAR.
Speaking for myself the one subject I struggled most during my Junior High and High School years was Math. I know i'm not the only one who isn't a fan of that subject either. Anyways I always dreaded taking the Math portion of the TAKS test every year, and unfortunatly did not pass it my junior year of HS. Now this just put me in a major downfall because this meant I had to take it again. If I didn't pass it, that only equaled one thing- not graduating. Briefly summing things up I missed one or two questions on the first retake then, thankfully, passed it the second time.
Going back on the subject here, I honestly thought they were going to get rid of the TAKS, or well STAAR test away and it would be based on the students courses and subjects that they were taking. Obviously that isn't the case, but by what I read myself in my classmates blog entry the state really didn't. When reading the first paragraph, the STAAR will have more questions and a time limit. A time limit?! Seriously?! Just seeing those two words just puts up a red flag for me. I mean when putting the added stress of trying to prepare for this standardize test and having more questions (which the TAAKS had about 60 I believe, if I remember correctly) then a time limit, I think thats putting the last straw on the camels back. Its going to just make students stress out more than needed, and probably make them rush because their afraid they won't finish in time. Now when the STAAR was TAAKS, students had pretty much all the time they needed to finish the test, which made the test less stressfull.
In aspect I do agree with my classmate about issues about the STAAR and how to fix this such as too many variables of the material to be tested on (like my classmate stated). Now I really agree what he mentioned in the 7th paragraph close to the bottom of his post. Its so true teachers, and the education board, only worry about taking a standardized test as opposed to actually teaching young students how to learn. I couldn't have said that better than he did. Like my classmate further mentioned how memorization is a key factor, but instead use something for efficiant. For instance, I know for one, some things I know how to get but can't solve the problem if its on paper. However there are some students that know how to do the problem and explaining it is alot easier than say, for instance, a word problem.
So in conclusion, I do agree with my classmate. Maybe its time for a new system of learning than some standardized test.
