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I'm pretty confused here. Principals push you to do things that don't improve performance on tests because...they are incentivized to improve performance on tests?
On the flip side:
we also have teachers refusing to teach the curriculum they are assigned.
At least it is if you assume some random teacher knows better about what students should learn than the semi-democratically chosen school officials who created the curriculum and decided what was important enough to be on the tests.
Why don't you show me where I said they don't improve performance on tests? I didn't say they work, and I didn't say they don't. I have no idea either way, and I don't care, because it is irrelevant. Even if it does work, it was not part of the curriculum, and was pushed for purposes unrelated to the best interests of students.
Dude, the analysis standards were not on the tests because designing and implementing a standardized test to test those skills is vastly more expensive than asking "which of the these people was not a leader of an Allied power during World War II" or whatever.
Principals, etc, do not get to assign curriculum. The state determines what curriculum is to be taught, not principals. As I said, the state has established social studies content standards, and social studies analysis standards. "How to game multiple choice tests" is not in the standards. As you yourself imply, teachers are supposed to teach the state mandated material, not some alternative that is designed to make the principal look good. Thank you for proving my point.
I suspect that you would be singing a different tune re teachers teaching curriculum pushed by administrators if, instead of saying, "This week, because I want the school (and me) to look good on the upcoming state tests, I want everyone to teach these 'how to take multiple choice tests' assignments," she had said, "This week, because I want the school (and me) to look good on the upcoming state DEI review, I want everyone to teach these "microaggressions and you" assignments."
It is true that any system involves administrivia that is necessary for the functioning if the system but not directly related to it's end goal.
For example, GAAP accounting does not directly benefit either customers or shareholders of a corporation. Does that mean an accountants union would be beneficial for stakeholders because it would allow accountants to keep their job even if they find tracking SBC to be annoying and just decide to ignore it? Would software companies benefit if developers could ignore their manager and just build whatever they think might benefit shareholders?
I would support teachers who took these assignments to libsoftiktok/tucker/any of the last remaining journalists and visibly refused to do their job as a form of protest. And if the governor overrode process to let them keep their job I'd be fine with it.
I would not support creating any procedural methods to enable people who refuse to do their job to keep getting paid, however.
While administering the tests might well be necessary for the functioning of the system, I don't understand why you are inferring that teaching kids how to game the test is necessary for the functioning of the system. Indeed, my entire point is that it is inimical to the functioning of the system, but was pushed because it was nevertheless in the interests of the individual administrators. As noted in my initial post, it is a classic example of the principal-agent problem.
I don't understand the relevance of the reference to people who refuse to do their job, since teaching subjects that are not part of the state standards for the course in question is not the job of any teacher; rather, it is the job of the teacher to refuse to do so.
It ensures an unbiased measurement of tested material between students who did learn to "game" the test and those who didn't. Similarly, "bring a #2 pencil" or "there will be a test on Fri" has no direct benefit to students so teachers who don't feel like making those announcements should be protected.
But I guess teachers who can't figure that much out are definitely qualified to do whatever the heck they feel like regardless of what management/administration assigns them.
Well, since I have repeatedly said that teachers are NOT free to do whatever the heck they feel like, but rather must teach the state-mandated curriculum, I am not sure why you think that is relevant. Unless, as I suspect, you aren't really trying to answer OP's question at all.
And, btw, it is hardly in the interests of the system to have falsely beliefs about what every kid has learned, rather than false beliefs about only some students. But I guess internet commenters who can't figure that out are definitely qualified to denigrate others.
Feel free to provide specific mechanics of how test prep produces false beliefs about student's ability and show a real standardized test on which your proposed strategy works.
Of course, the last time I asked this, you claimed to be agnostic that such a thing existed, yet now you seem to claim it exists for sure. Weird.
That's the whole point of teaching students how to game a test; it allows them to get the correct answer regardless of not knowing what the answer is.
It's called accepting the premise of your argument. Look, there are only two possibilities: 1) Teaching students how to game the test has no effect on test scores. If so, doing to is a complete waste of time, and administrators who push teachers to do so are acting contrary to the interests of students; or 2) Doing so does work, so that students get scores which do not reflect their actual abilities. That helps administrators by making them look good, but a) harms students by using class time which could have been used to teach the state-mandated curriculum; and b) harms the district, by giving it false data regarding student learning. Either way, it is a perfect example of the principal-agent problem, as mentioned in my initial post. And, lest we forget, that was just ONE example thereof.
A third possibility you're ignoring: teaching students the mechanics of the test results in the test more accurately representing their knowledge. This is principal/agent alignment, insofar as accurate measurements indirectly provide value to the principals.
For example, reminding students daily to bring at least 3 #2 pencils and a sharpener on friday is more likely to result in an accurate score for students who would otherwise forget pencils. Teaching students to completely fill in bubbles avoids wrong scores for students who think they put a checkmark next to the right answer. Teaching students to guess if they can eliminate obviously wrong possibilities (d: Lincoln's cell phone wasn't charged) makes the test reflect partial knowledge (Lincoln didn't have a cell phone) more granularly.
So if you want to claim test prep isn't useful for the administration of a test, you need to exclude two possibilities:
a) it's teaching useful mechanics such as what I describe above that make test administration work better
b) it's teaching the actual boring material as opposed to fun stuff teachers enjoy more
All the test prep I've ever received or performed (I taught too) fell into one of these categories, and I've basically never even seen test prep that didn't.
Or alternately, you need to show that the amount of (a) which is done is in excess of what would be efficient in an ideal system. If that's the route you want to go, it is of course necessary to demonstrate how teachers with no data analysis skills (and usually no access to data) are somehow better at identifying this optimum than administrators.
But I'm hardly surprised that you refused to provide any specifics and instead just repeated the same meaningless talking points.
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