On the surface, teaching to the test seems to have "face-validity" but there are several insidious characteristics of this strategy that are similar to a "Ponzi Scheme."
Of course everybody knows that Ponzi Schemes are illegal in the U.S., but, it is the U.S. Government that is (inadvertently?) pushing these short-sighted strategies under the guise of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
Here is the classic definition of a "Ponzi Scheme."
"The Ponzi scheme continues to work on the "rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul" principle, as money from new investors is used to pay off earlier investors until the whole scheme collapses."
Source: US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
Link to SEC source
Teaching to the Test is not Taking Students' Money: How does the Ponzi Scheme Definition Apply?
The classic high-stakes-test-objectives-driven curriculum is similar to a Ponzi Scheme on two dimensions:
- This curriculum scheme borrows against students' future learning by focusing upon short-term payoffs instead of building upon a solid foundation for learning.
- This curriculum focuses upon short-term memory training on the lower levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, the kinds of learning tasks that are the most quickly forgotten
This borrowing against the future is most evident when students who excel at test-taking discover (later on in the real world) that they are less than competitive in the job market.
For example, Texas spent about a decade testing "writing skills" with the now defunct TAAS Test (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills). During that time, all Texas students learned to master the art of formula writing so that they could write to the high-stakes prompt.
Unfortunately, Texas trained a half-generation of job candidates that lacked basic writing competencies in the job arena.
Here you see how the future cost of lost jobs, unearned raises, or unpaid bonuses falls due when the Rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul system collapses.
And this does not include the costs to students who must take business writing courses to keep their jobs, or the cost to employers who have to pay for training to teach their employees (who aced the TAAS Writing Test) how to write. And, what about business lost when poorly written proposals were submitted according to the "formula?"
Is a Focus on Sort-term Memory Skills "that" Shortsighted?
Industrial-age, factory-floor education has always focused upon facts and figures, i.e., knowledge and comprehension. But, Benjamin Bloom suggested that other types of learning were more important.
Link to the learning domains of Bloom's Taxonomy
Application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation are considered to be "higher-order" thinking skills.
And, even though newer high-stakes tests claim to focus upon questions that seem to require higher-order thinking to come up with an educated guess, high-stakes test proponents fail to notice that Benjamin Bloom's hierarchy contains two other domains, i.e., the affective and the psychomotor domains.
A curriculum that focuses upon paper and pencil test practice doesn't have time for the reports, performances, presentations, hands-on experimentation, student projects, peer mediation, service learning, arts education and all the other meaningful experiences that broaden and deepen a students' intellectual and academic world. Students need to stretch their creativity and their perceptions as they integrate and manipulate intellectual, emotional and hands-on models of mastery and achievement.
Students are shortchanged if their world view is narrowed to the drab and dingy perceptions of the professional test-item writers. Students are conned if they learn that there is one and only one "right" answer, or if they learn that all of life's skills boil down to how well you answer test questions.
Focusing on a high-stakes-test curriculum leaves students impoverished in thought, in a similar way to how investing in a Ponzi Scheme leaves them financially hurting and longing for their vanished, hard-earned money.
A Warped Numbers Game
In addition, the focusing upon a test-objectives matrix (grid/ printout) to drive instructional activity choices is a "the gambler always looses" scam.
A teacher's odds for a positive student outcome payoff are better in a dice game or at the roulette table than following this instructional hustle.
Here is what is wrong with the numbers.
Let's say that there are 50 high-stakes reading test objectives and 80 high-stakes test math objectives.
Let's also agree that the high-staked reading test will be administered 125 days after the school year, and the math test will be administered 150 days after the start of the school year.
This provides approximately two days per objective, if all students are present each and every day.
The Gung-ho Newbie teacher who wants to please the high-stakes-harried principal is going to track every data point and use spreadsheets to keep up with the progress of 20 students.
Of course, the teacher lines the objectives up and schedules two days for each in succession.
This means that the teacher doesn't dare to skip the grading of every reading and math practice test each night so that those students that need extra tutoring can be helped the next day.
Soon, however, a backlog of students who have to make up "work" for missed objectives develops. Fortunately, there are days off for Thanksgiving and the Winter Solstice/ New Year holidays. Those students who fall behind can use these days to catch up by doing the extra homework. "Won't those students be grateful that I help them pass the high-stakes test," the Gung-ho Newbie teacher thinks.
Of course, in the march to "cover" all the objectives in time, this high-stakes-test-driven teacher has to tramp on art, music, creative expression, student projects and any fun activities. "How can students have fun when they keep falling so far behind?" the Gung-ho Newbie teacher thinks.
But, guess what. By the time that the students get to objectives 35 or so, they have forgotten objectives one through 25. No one pointed out that students forget stuff that they only see twice.
And, oh yea! the Gung-ho Newbie teacher is spending so much time entering data, sorting students by objectives mastered and missed, and grouping and regrouping students that spouses and significant others tire of begging for affection and attention from the always working Newbie, and seek satisfaction elsewhere.
What if the Test-Smart Teacher "Covers" all the Objectives All the Time?
The really industrious Gung-ho Newbie (probably one with no significant other) who can devote 24x7 effort to this testing strategy can build enough tests for at least one can be given each week that covers everything.
Of course, this teacher has to write all these tests because, after buying all the grade level test books at the teacher's store (six weeks and $200 later), the supply ran out.
But, after 16 weeks of this "artificial intelligence," the students' affection span dwindles to next to no empathy for the teacher (or for each other).
Tempers flare at the slightest glancing provocation, and disgruntled, unhappy children rue the day that they were placed in that class.
Conditions become so odious that the only sweet revenge that the students can muster is to slack off on the real test to lodge their futile protest.
And what could be sweeter than to strike their tormenter where it really hurts, with poor test scores for the class affirming that they "had a lousy teacher."
Are there any other Insidious Issues
Another submerged, under the radar issue, kept hidden if at all possible is the issue of referring test-challenged students to Special Education to the maximum amount that the teacher or campus can get away with.
These clandestine machinations, made in the name of helping the student to be successful, rob students of job payoffs in later life, as well as self-confidence and peer acceptance in their immediate future.
Of course, school districts and state education bureaucracies have caught on to this diversion-from-the-test tactic, but their vigilance has driven the practice underground more than eliminating the practice.
Other loosing bet is the negative bounce that students' and teachers self-confidence and self-esteem takes as a bad draw of the benchmark test cards is played.
Benchmark testing, for any but the most academically talented students, brings a "loose/ no win" reward for weeks of endurance and boredom in practicing for the high-stakes test.
Of course, repeated benchmark testing jades students in stages so that they are turned off and unmotivated by the time that the "for real" test darkens their horizon.
See our previous newsletter article...Link to The Flaws, Fallacies and Foolishness of Benchmark Testing article.
Another Ponzi Scheme-type outcome is what occurs the minute after the high-stakes test is administered. Everyone knows that the school year is over, even though there may be 30 or 65 more school attendance days. After wasting most of the school year studying for this test, no one has the motivation, desire or inclination to squander the rest of the year preparing for next-year's test; or for study of any kind, for that matter.
Equally unethical is the practice of focusing on only a small number of students, the students whose test objectives mastered patterns indicate that they are close to passing.
These "on the cusp" students receive an inordinate amount of attention, while students whose pattern of mastery of test objectives is very low are abandoned. The rationale is that no amount of effort will help those low students to pass, so why not focus your finite attention on the students who have a chance of passing.
And, the cumulative abandoning of these "low performing" students, passed over as hopeless, year after year, is robbery of the lowest order.
Stamping out Waste, Fraud and Abuse
Just say, "Yes" to empowering students and their teacher. Make learning dynamic, creative, artistic and real world.
Communicate with student about what is exciting to them, and find ways to integrate student interests to the curriculum.
And, adopt some version or iteration of the "Golden Rule." If would like for others to treat you with dignity and for others to teach you what is important for your life; then treat them kindly, eliminate unneeded stress from your classroom, and bring your investment (or gamble) in high-stakes-test-practice to a minimum level, a level of risk where it doesn't matter if you loose.
Remember, if your test study scheme robs students' of their future prosperity, you have really let them down. Protect your students from the scam of the Ponzi-style, rob Peter to pay Paul, dice roll of high-stakes-test practice.
Remember, "high stakes" means that everything is riding on one throw of the dice or one spin of the wheel.
Help your students invest in solid, low-risk, high-payoff learning instead.
