Courtesy of Kristina Rizga (who I think I shall be reading more of soon), Mother Jones posted an excellent article on a High School that has not been well-served by our current approach to measuring educational performance.
In summary: With a year embedded in Mission High School of California, Ms. Rizga presents to us the story of a young Latina immigrant who has found a school - and a family - willing and able to help her through the numerous barriers to a brighter future that life has presented her with. The faculty and staff seem no less dedicated than those deified and immortalized in the story of Jaime Escalante and his AP Calculus classes.
However, they could be interfered with. The current multiple-choice standardized tests utilized by California reflect none of the effort and love that goes into teaching students there. As for why that is, I suggest that you read the article; I wouldn't want to just repost the text without permission.
As a personal aside, if they're not messed with by underinformed, well-intentioned outsiders too much, they could have a much more lasting effect than Escalante. Escalante's Garfield High is as if he was never there, now; due to no fault of his own, other teachers resented him. He and those who helped him were outliers. Mission, as presented, seems to be a very cohesive unit attempting to improve life for their students - despite the article focusing on a small few.
More of my personal thoughts after the jump.
The following underinformed comment is my own opinion; it shouldn't reflect on the quality of the article.
As a young adult, I've often heard the sentiment that metrics could only be so useful in measuring educational performance, and it's commonly baffled me. I've largely avoided the issue as education isn't one of my most hotbutton ones (I'm broadly in favor of it, but only generically so), but it seemed like just another iteration of an establishment denying metrics and science. Even growing up in a mixed-language household, the idea of someone who can do phenomenally well on essays and terribly on multiple choice is something that's been foreign to me.
So, I am grateful for this article posted by MoJo and Ms. Rizga.
The other thing I've long had trouble understanding is how 'teaching the test' does not result in knowledge of the subject. I've been an inveterate crammer (hoping to reform this behavior as I begin my first semester of law school) and studying for the test has been how I learned most things I know - and I display better retention than most people, including those who academically outperformed me in the subject a few years prior.
To me it feels like, if the right questions are being asked, and the questions are being presented in the right way, that multiple-choice standardized tests could still provide an important function in education metrics. If teaching the test isn't educational, then perhaps the tests should have narrower and more comprehensive fields of questions; if students can perform well on the essay level, perhaps essay questions need to be more common, and used as an alternative metric rather than an additional metric on these tests; perhaps questions should be asked in more plain language.
There are many things we once believed defied scientific or quantitative analysis and have found the opposite to be true. We should rely on qualitative analyses to be sure, because schools like Mission are certainly being treated unfairly; but I really think this is an example that the measurements we are using right now are wrong, and not that we should abandon attempts to develop objective measurements as the primary method of ensuring improvement in education across the world.