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#standardized-testing — Public Fediverse posts

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  1. “Adaptive” standardized tests are not “standardized” because the computer assigns different exams to each student based on their answers to initial questions, capping their maximum score early on, incentivizing students to quit early to, using speedrunner terminology, avoid wasting time on a “dead run”. #sat #standardizedTesting en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer

  2. Ars Technica: Google begins offering free SAT practice tests powered by Gemini. “Of course, generative AI can go off the rails and provide incorrect information, which is a problem when you’re trying to learn things. However, Google says it has worked with education firms like The Princeton Review to ensure the AI-generated tests resemble what students will see in the real deal. The interface […]

    https://rbfirehose.com/2026/01/24/ars-technica-google-begins-offering-free-sat-practice-tests-powered-by-gemini/
  3. Opinion | UC San Diego report: Incoming students are not ready for college – The Washington Post

    Opinion

    Megan McArdle

    The signs of educational decline are now impossible to ignore

    UC San Diego report shows students are not prepared for college, especially in math.

    November 23, 2025, 5 min

    Some years ago, during a dinner party, our smoke detector started beeping while we were broiling steaks. I dashed into the hallway and poked at the detector with a broom, which paused, as if surprised, then resumed wailing. My husband came out of the kitchen and had a go. His more muscular attention bought us perhaps 30 seconds of relief, but the machine recovered and more aggressively assaulted our ears. Eventually we pulled the cursed thing out of its frame and ripped the batteries out.

    The best of The Post’s opinions and commentary, in your inbox every morning

    That’s when one of our guests said, “Guys, that’s really a lot of smoke.” It sure was, because as it turned out, our bathroom was on fire (thanks to a candle).

    Life is full of these messy signals. Prices are a signal. They tell us how much people want stuff, how much that stuff costs to produce and how much of it we have available. Standardized test scores are signs, telling us whether kids have mastered certain skills. Those warnings are, like my smoke alarm, highly imperfect. (We’ve had many alerts and exactly one fire.) But they contain vital information, and we ignore them at our peril.

    Unfortunately, because these signals are messy, we are often tempted to ignore them, especially when the information they contain is bad news, like “your bathroom is on fire,” or “your schools are failing to close persistent racial and income gaps,” or “regulations have made it too hard to build new housing.” Ideally you’d extinguish the fire or fix your failing schools or amend the regulations before the problem worsens. But solving problems is hard, and in politics, it often involves taking on well-organized constituencies that will wave away the smoke and insist that everything is just fine. So institutions often choose to disregard the underlying issues and simply whack the alarm with a hammer until it stops beeping.

    🎤

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    There has been a lot of that going on recently, most notably in education. Instead of rectifying disparities in preparation and achievement, people decided it would be simpler to adjust the measurements. Parents opposed standardized testing, got their kids disability diagnoses that allowed them extra time on tests and lobbied teachers to change bad grades. Exhausted teachers responded with grade inflation, which also helped conceal that low-income and minority kids weren’t doing as well as their richer and White peers. Progressive educators watered down curriculums, gutted gifted and talented programs, and weakened admissions standards for honors classes and magnet schools. Colleges dropped standardized testing requirements, in part because that made it easier to diversify their student body. None of these things happened everywhere, but they happened in many places, and all of them made it harder to see — or rectify — pandemic-era learning loss.

    Continue/Read Original Article Here: Opinion | UC San Diego report: Incoming students are not ready for college – The Washington Post

    Tags: Educational Decline, Incoming Students, Institutions, Mathematics, Megan McArdle, Messy Signals, Not Ready for College, Opinion, Pandemic-Era Learning Loss Math, Standardized Testing, The Washington Post, UC San Diego, UCSD

    #educationalDecline #incomingStudents #institutions #mathematics #meganMcardle #messySignals #notReadyForCollege #opinion #pandemicEraLearningLossMath #standardizedTesting #theWashingtonPost #ucSanDiego #ucsd

  4. The Texas Senate passed a bill to eliminate the STAAR test — the state's standardized test for public schools — while also overhauling how schools are rated and limiting legal challenges that have delayed accountability scores in recent years.

    houstonpublicmedia.org/article

    #Education #EducationNews #Houston #Local #News #Politics #Texas #89thTexasLegislature #Government #HoustonISD #Staar #StandardizedTesting

  5. EdSource: New Stanford database tracks learning loss, gain in California and districts nationwide. “A unique database that enables people to compare standardized test scores among nearly all districts and states found that California experienced slightly less learning loss than the national average in the four years following the 2020 pandemic. The Education Recovery Scorecard, which […]

    https://rbfirehose.com/2025/02/14/edsource-new-stanford-database-tracks-learning-loss-gain-in-california-and-districts-nationwide/

  6. [Excessive testing teaches students] that learning is a joyless succession of hoops through which they must jump, rather than a way of understanding and mastering the world. Every question has one right answer; the measure of a person is a number. Being insightful, or creative, or heaven forfend, counterintuitive counts for nothing.
    -- Anna Quindlen (Newsweek June 2005)

    #Wisdom #Quotes #AnnaQuindlen #Education #StandardizedTesting

    #Photography #Panorama #Palms #Florida

  7. What world is this we live in where a 9 year old is anxious at night because he took *two seconds* too long on a reading comprehension test????

    This week is standardized testing week here and man, I wish I could yeet them into the void.

    #StandardizedTesting #testing #assessment #education #ElementaryEd #ElementaryEducation #elementary #kids #parenting #CITO

  8. One more week of mind-numbing #k12 #StandardizedTesting (proctoring) done.

    About half my time during second semester (January through May) each year is spent inflicting standardized tests. Most of February and March is #OELPA (#Ohio #ESOL) testing. Then April is end-of-course graduation tests.

    So, yes, next week will also be testing. If all goes well, I'll be done after testing on Wednesday. Realistically, Thursday will be make ups.

    Won't someone think of the #students? And their #teachers?

  9. It is that wonderful (not really) time of the #k12 school year when I spend basically 4 months doing standardized state testing.

    As much as I would rather not have to proctor the tests, I feel very sorry for the students who have to waste valuable school time taking all these tests.

    #StandardizedTesting #OhioStateTests
    #education
    #EnglishLearners

  10. [Excessive testing teaches students] that learning is a joyless succession of hoops through which they must jump, rather than a way of understanding and mastering the world. Every question has one right answer; the measure of a person is a number. Being insightful, or creative, or heaven forfend, counterintuitive counts for nothing.
    -- Anna Quindlen (Newsweek June 2005)

    #Quotes #AnnaQuindlen #Education #StandardizedTesting

    #Photography #Panorama #PitcherPlants #Flowers #Florida

  11. Standardized Tests Lie - Standardized tests are not accurate assessments of student learning. They are corporate propaganda. gadflyonthewallblog.com/2023/1 via @StevenSinger3 #StandardizedTesting

  12. School Directors Shouldn’t Double Down on PA’s Keystone Exam Circus - Worse than giving standardized tests is believing they provide reliable information, so reliable that you are willing to ruin a kids future citing them. gadflyonthewallblog.com/2023/1 #StandardizedTesting

  13. Research Shows State School District Report Cards Do Not Measure the Quality of Public Schools - A glaring truth that continuously needs amplification. janresseger.wordpress.com/2023 via @janresseger #StandardizedTesting

  14. FAIRTEST: Record Number of Colleges Are Test-Optional - Great news for students and parents. Bad news for testing grifters. dianeravitch.net/2023/07/26/fa via @dianeravitch #StandardizedTesting

  15. Avoid Raising Machines
    "That we would train machines to be like us is not surprising.

    The real scandal is how much we’ve trained ourselves to be like machines."
    Austin Kleon

    It's testing season as another school year comes to a close. The time when students get to demonstrate just how well we've trained them to be little machines.

    We
    mikepaul.com/2023/05/16/avoid-
    #ai #EducationPolicy #machines #StandardizedTesting #students #testing #tests #WastingTime

  16. Starting state testing for English Learners today.

    Students who place out of services receive nothing and lose accommodations on state graduation tests.

    Bonus in their eyes: they get to miss class and be with their friends for the testing.

    Shockingly, it is not always easy to motivate students to do their best.

    #Teaching #StateTesting #StandardizedTesting #ESL #ESOL #K12

  17. CW: Racism and educational tests

    "Yerkes declared that ... the tests measured innate intelligence rather than education. “It behooves us to consider their reliability and their meaning, for no one of us as a citizen can afford to ignore the menace of race deterioration”."

    The racist past - and present - of standardised tests in the US, by Deborah Blum in Undark.

    ⚠️ Long read ⚠️

    race.undark.org/articles/born-

    #LongReads #DeborahBlum #Undark #ScientificRacism #StandardizedTesting #SATs #Education #USA

  18. How meme culture changed the PSAT - Enlarge (credit: Caiaimage/Paul Bradbury/Getty)
    Thank you for coming and welcome to the College B... more: arstechnica.com/?p=1588305 #standardizedtesting #gaming&culture #memes #psat #sat