Thoughts...Making a Profit Off Kids, the Houston Chronicle, October 28, 2007 Over the last two years, 23 states across the country have added more than 11.3 million reading and math tests to their school curricula in order to keep up with the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Law. Michigan alone has tacked on more than 1 million new tests; New York, more than 1.7 million. While experts are debating whether increased testing helps kids learn more, most agree that it does mean big bucks for the testing companies. The school testing and testing services industry (which includes tutoring, test prep courses and the tests themselves) is now an estimated $2.3 billion a year enterprise, with just five big companies controlling 90% of the statewide testing revenue.
High-Stakes Testing: Is It Fair to Students? The Loss and the Damage from the Family Education Network As the pressure increases for students and schools to perform well on standardized tests, teachers adjust their curricula to fit the content and the format of the tests. In Education Week's special report, "Quality Counts 2001," 66 percent of teachers surveyed said they must concentrate "too much" on what's tested at the expense of other subjects. There is also widespread concern that subjects such as fine arts and physical education will be dropped altogether because teachers don't have time to teach subjects that don't appear on the test... --for the complete article click here
U.S. educators seek lessons from Scandinavia A recent U.S. delegation toured Scandinavian countries for advice. A delegation led by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) recently toured Scandinavia in search of answers for how students in that region of the world were able to score so high on a recent international test of math and science skills. They found that educators in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark all cited autonomy, project-based learning, and nationwide broadband internet access as keys to their success.
| TEA Document: Frequently Asked Questions & Answers about the Texas Assessment Program TEA Document: Science TAKS Information Booklet in English TEA Document: Ciencias TAKS Informacion en Espanol TEA Study Guide: click on this link for HELP to pass the 5th Grade Science TAKS test TEA Released Tests: Here is a sample of the Science TAKS your child can do on line! This is another version. A third released test you can use to practice. From the Stanford Test: How You Can Help Your Child Before the Test From the Stanford Test: Sample Science Questions More from Stanford about the Science Portion PALS is an on-line, standards-based, continually updated resource bank of science performance assessment tasks indexed via the National Science Education Standards Science TAKS Test is April 29, 2009
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