Testing Down

I've noticed 2 articles this past week on testing problem:

N.Y. English Scores Drop Sharply in 6th Grade: The share of students in New York State who are reading and writing at grade level drops sharply between the fifth and sixth grades and keeps declining through middle school, according to the first results of a new state testing system adopted to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind law's requirements for tracking year-to-year progress.

and

CSUs get influx of unprepared freshmen: Results of the Early Assessment Program tests, which are administered by the state university system, show that only one-quarter of California 11th graders who took the exam in spring 2006 had the skills needed to take university-level English classes.
Even smaller percentages of 11th graders were ready for college math.

Also, as I was searching for the first article, I found:

Japanese Fret That Quality Is in Decline: In Japan'’s schools, once lauded for their hard-working students and sharp-penciled test takers, test scores have fallen recently below those of countries like Singapore, South Korea and Finland. Dozens of educators at elementary and high schools across Japan are sounding alarms about declining standards.

So, is the problem in testing or in the students? Or just teaching? Or something else, like the students are becoming less of a conformist and become more creative and rebellious [i.e., less likely to become slaves followers]

Personally, I think testing is meaningless, but that's neither here nor there.

Copyright 2006, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.