Scott Cech, writing for Education Week online, presented an outline of the Harvard’s Graduate School of Education’s Daniel Koretz’s study about the dangers (to both educators and the educatees) of “teaching to the test.” The test in question, for Koretz, is specifically the No Child Left Behind validation tests so widely utilized to measure “progress.”
Cech writes:
[Koretz's] new book, Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us, added that under the No Child Left Behind law, widespread teaching to the test, strategic reallocation of teaching talent, and other means of gaming the high-stakes testing system have conspired to produce scores on state standardized tests that are substantially better than students’ mastery of the material.
Cech goes on to broadly outline the impact of Koretz’s work: inflated scores, mis-allocation of resources, etc.
While Cech and Koretz are working primarily in k-12 education, I see specific and direct parallels to adult education, especially in project-based training.
In both instances (NCLB, SAP training), a standard of measure is used to determine “progress” (adequate yearly progress for schools, certification or competency for training). If those numbers, as reported to the respective management structure, drive the teaching/training, false and illusary information will be given.
The downside? Lost money, resources and revenue. For schools, the biggest loser will be the students, learning how to game a test but missing the larger concept. Same too for the end-user who is taught the individual steps (click here, enter this here) without a broader understanding of her part in a larger process (create this document in order for this, this and this to completed by this or that department). If the report from the school/trainer casually indicates all is well, come the moment when the learner must perform (actually use the information, perform her job), anxiety and possible failure loom large.
Metrics will pop up quite often on this blog as I wrestle with just how to use performance indicators to “pulse” the learning encounter. It seems that often how to test and then how that test is used determines the outcome–Schrödinger’s Cat in training.
