\doc\web\98\06\retest.txt Posted by: Name: dggarner@swbell.net Email: dggarner@swbell.net Subject: Retesting and Outcomes-Based Education Time & date added: 1998-08-07 10:28 Message: RETESTING -- OUTCOMES-BASED EDUCATION by Donna Garner High School English/Spanish Teacher Retesting in the public schools is a vestige left over from outcomes-based education (OBE). OBE has been discredited throughout the U. S. because it has not helped students to progress academically. In theory, it sounds great. \"Students need to master the material each step of the learning process before they go to the next step.\" This is particularly true in competency-based subjects such as math, grammar, and foreign languages. However, in reality, this is what happens in the typical student\'s mind. He thinks, \"So long as I have a chance to take a retest, I think I\'ll not study tonight because I really want to watch that exciting TV program. I can always take a tetest even if I can only make a 70. That is a passing grade and is good enough for me.\" The class starts the next day with an entire group of students who have adopted the same attitude. What happens is that the teacher cannot move into the next developmental step because too many of the students have not learned the material; they are \"planning\" to learn the material later for a retest but not right now. The students who learned the material the first time (when the test was announced) are ready to move on, but they are forced to sit there while the teacher reteaches the material to the ever-growing number of procrastinators. Why does the number of procrastinators grow? The conscientious students soon learn that the material is going to be retaught and retested anyway so why learn it the first time and be bored in class? They join the ranks of the \"learn-it-later\" crowd. Theoretically speaking, at the beginning of the year, the classroom starts from Square 1 with the expectation that tomorrow the class will go to Square 2. In reality with a retesting policy in place, tomorrow part of the class remains at Square 1 with a few ready to go to Square 2. When Square 3 day arrives, many students are still on Square 1, part are on Square 2, and an ever-shrinking number is ready for Square 3. Soon the entire class disintegrates with no clear direction or focus. Every child is on a different Square, and there are no longer any clear expectations. This is the fallacy of retesting and OBE. Most of these same students, if they knew they would have to repeat the class if they did not keep up day-to-day, would rise to the occasion. They would study and be prepared for each day\'s lesson rather than pay the natural consequences of their decision to procrastinate. Because children are not \"miniature adults\" and are naturally drawn to procrastination, retesting simply plays into that philosophy. OBE and retesting are practices which have helped to turn out employees who are slovenly and sloppy about living up to personal responsibility. Instead of the schools requiring that students live up to deadlines by letting students learn through natural consequences, we educators have given into children\'s natural affinity to procrastinate by allowing them to retest. Our \"cop-out\" as educators has only served to produce the kind of employees that totally frustrate the business world; and it is these poorly trained graduates who have pushed the business world to fall for the federal government\'s School-to-Work initiative. Employers think that what we need in the schools is more time spent and more emphasis given to career education at an earlier age. They think that will fix the problem. The point that they are missing is that what we educators need to do is produce students who are personally responsible, who can meet deadlines successfully, and who can perform higher-level thinking because they have a strong foundation of basic skills. This can only come from more -- not less -- classroom time spent on teaching the fundamentals and making sure that all students learn the materials thoroughly. The way to make sure that students develop personal responsibility and a full knowledge of basic skills is not to give them an excuse for procrastination -- retesting. Any good teacher reteaches and retests when he sees that a large number of his students have not mastered a concept. That is a far different concept from students and their parents being allowed to expect a retest, some even to \"demand\" a retest. One of the reasons that OBE has proven to be ineffective is that conscientious teachers spent so much time developing retests and tracking mastery that they had no time or energy left to present the material well the first time around. Tests do not just \"fall off the trees.\" Good tests take hours and hours to produce. Many OBE teachers who started the year with good intentions eventually fell into the practice of giving their students the same retest over and over until the students finally memorized the order of the answers. Educators can help meet the needs of the workforce if they will guide young children in the elementary grades and then require older students at the secondary level to be personally responsible by meeting deadlines. Retesting produces the opposite effect by giving students the \"right\" to procrastinate. After all, how many adults in the business world get the chance to \"retest\"? I do not want to fly on a plane with a pilot who plans to master the control panel later when he has time. I would not relish the idea of having surgery performed by a doctor who has graduated from the School of Retesting and OBE. Donna Garner 236 Cross Country Drive Hewitt, TX 76643 dggarner@swbell.net http://www.readbygrade3.com http://www.htcomp.net/tad ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Subscribers may view this post and any others to which it is related by visiting: http://www.education-consumers.com/ClearingHouse/ Subscribers may choose to discontinue messages forwarded from the ClearingHouse by clicking the "Receive new postings by e-mail" link and making the appropriate selections. EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE http://www.education-consumers.com