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stefan_ 7 days ago

Which is why reorganizing all school systems around teaching the standardized test and judging teachers by these results has been such an overwhelming success that "virtually nobody [..] disagrees with".

umanwizard 7 days ago | parent [-]

The US has probably the least test-focused education system in the developed world (you don’t need to take any exam to graduate high school except in some cases an extremely easy one as a formality). Would you claim the US education system is better than the UK, France or Germany?

mrguyorama 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

There is no "US" education system in reality. There is a "Maine" education system, and a "Colorado" education system, and a "Florida" education system.

They have wildly different rules, designs, systems, and results.

MisterTea 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The US has probably the least test-focused education system in the developed world

And there I was, in American schools being told test scores were 80% of my grade with homework accounting for 10% and class projects another 10%. Both high school and university. Fucking liars.

umanwizard 5 days ago | parent [-]

Presumably random exams made up by your teachers, not nationwide or statewide standardized tests, though.

lmm 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The fact that we even have year-by-year, grade-by-grade test figures for the US implies it's significantly more test-focused than the UK, where those tests simply don't exist for most grades.

willy_k 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

Are you talking about finals or standardized tests? Because from my experience at least, the latter has minimal impact on the track that kids follow (could put on you advanced math or reading track but there is opportunity for mobility regardless) and only the SAT/ACT (highest score of however many times on chooses to take them) is used to determine where someone can go to college. But test scores (even MCAT/LSAT) will never determine what someone can study, just where, which is not the case in the UK per my understanding.

umanwizard 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Whether you get any qualification at all in the UK is entirely determined by high-stakes standardized tests, at least on the main academic track (GCSE and A levels)

lmm 6 days ago | parent [-]

Sure. But students have very little influence on the system. How test-focused a schooling system is isn't going to depend on how much test results affect the students, it's going to depend on how much test results affect the teachers and especially the administrators.