The State of New York vs. Intelligence

One of the nuisances benefits of being an in-home tutor is that I get to see all the wonderful standardized tests my students have to suffer through year after year.  These include the TACHS exam (for entering Catholic high schools), the city-wide and state-wide tests in social studies, mathematics, reading, and science, the multi-subject regents exams, and, to a lesser extent, the SAT, SAT II, and GRE tests.

None of those tests are necessary.  However, I'm forced to teach methods of succeeding on these tests instead of actual knowledge that a child can use in life (like why they shouldn't major in the Humanities).  The same problem exists in the schools on a macro level.  Teachers are forced to teach for tests instead of teaching critical thinking/research/writing skills that can benefit ANY student of ANY skill level regardless of the field they eventually choose.

This limits both the intellectual growth of the student and the professional growth of the teacher.  Imagine, if you will, that you're a biology teacher in a high school.  A student asks a question about cellular chemistry, and you don't know the answer.  Instead of telling the student that you'll do some research and answer his/her question the next day, you're essentially forced to say, "Well I don't know.  But don't worry, that type of question won't be on the regents".

This doesn't mean you won't research it anyway (which, if you're a genuinely arrogant person like me, you would), but you have zero motivation beyond your own thirst for knowledge, and then very limited opportunity to expand your class beyond the specifics of whatever standardized tests your students need to pass to move on.

The end result is a crop of students who may do wonderfully according to the standards of New York state.  But what about the standards of the modern educational environment?  What about the standards of the myriad fields of interest available to students once they reach the college level?  What about MY standards when I'm teaching my supplemental education courses?  Why can't I teach a high school student about the Elizabethan world so he or she can better understand Shakespeare, or how and why Victorian England wasn't as prudish as we tend to think? 

In short, it's because the state of New York has decided what students need to know, and whenever government decides precisely what people (and yes, students are people too) need to know, we're entering dangerous territory.

I didn't even touch upon the fact that some students are just naturally bad test-takers.  I'll leave that for another time.