Over the years, I have been writing about misconceptions regarding the schooling process. The purpose of these posts is to explain why I disagree with various comments that I have heard people make about schooling. These are meant as personal thoughts rather than conclusive proof, and I will admit that I'm not always the best at explaining my thoughts. Regardless, I have decided that I should be willing to share these posts when I encounter someone online who makes an argument that I have already discussed.
For my latest post, I'm going to do something a little different. I'm going to take a popular argument that fits my messaging and explain why it's unreliable. This is the idea that testing has proven that children are better off if they learn outside the government-controlled model.
The bottom line is that the testing we are using is seriously flawed. These tests were built around the expectations of the conventional schooling model. As I have repeatedly stated, no innovative school will ever outperform a conventional school at being a conventional school. These tests measure expectations within context of a conventional school, not adherence to conventional standards. It is technically possible to outperform the government-controlled model, but innovative schools are at an undeniable disadvantage.
Among the problems with our approach to testing is that these tests do a lousy job of evaluating practical ability. If you are an accomplished inventor, you may not do as well on a test as someone who crams the night before to delay forgetting a formula until the test is over. The ability to solve real-world problems is nowhere near as valuable in these tests as cramming and knowing how to best answer multiple-choice questions.
Another problem with these tests is that they only capture a small piece of what's learned. If you have someone fluent in five languages, that doesn't matter. If you fall one question short on an English test, that will be viewed as failure. Schools that don't push all students to pursue the same education are at a serious disadvantage.
To try to be objective, tests focus exclusively on questions that can be either right or wrong. Most mental development does not fit that pattern. I have long insisted that I view the development of independent thought as the single most important component of mental development. I have yet to see a test even try to capture that skill.
If you have paid attention to my online presence, you might have noticed that I don't participate in these discussions. They might help my arguments, but they're not valid. If I want to convince people to support the right to learn free from government control, I am much more interested in making points that are valid.
In recent years, supporters of the government-controlled model of schooling have tried to fight back by looking for ways to interpret test results in a manner favorable to them. This is just as faulty. If I refuse to embrace these numbers when they back my arguments, why would I embrace them when they are contrary?
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