January 2000 Sell Schools, Not Test Scores Everyone knows that buyers are attracted to
neighborhoods with good schools. But
not everyone has had occasion to think about what makes schools good. That’s why many realtors continue to
assume – falsely – that high test scores are a positive sign. To begin with, test scores closely parallel the income
and educational level of the families who send their kids to a particular
school. Wealthier neighborhoods have
higher scores for reasons that have little to do with what’s going on in the
classroom – and thus it would be misleading to cite those scores as an
indication of educational quality. But that’s not the whole story. Most standardized tests are held in low
regard by qualified teachers. What
these tests measure is the temporary retention of low-level skills and
soon-to-be-forgotten facts. The
questions are often multiple-choice, which means that students don’t have the
chance to generate answers or explain their thinking. They are timed, which means that speed
matters more than thoughtfulness. Many
of them are “norm-referenced,” which means they are designed not to judge
whether students know what they should, but solely to decide who is better
than whom. (Someone who is in the top
10 percent is not necessarily successful in absolute terms.) Researchers have confirmed that very talented,
hard-working students often do poorly on standardized tests, while some
students who are superb test-takers tend to think superficially and don’t
really understand why some of the
right answers are right. Moreover,
terrific teaching can actually cause scores to go down, and terrible teaching
can cause scores to rise – because the kind of instruction that is aimed at
test preparation is very different from the kind of instruction that helps kids
become critical, curious, creative thinkers. Thus, when politicians or school officials brag about
their standardized test scores, the proper reaction on the part of parents
would be to say, “Frankly, if this is what you’re mostly concerned about, then
I’m worried about the quality of schooling here.” Of course, not all parents know enough to
say this. But are we unwittingly
making things worse? Every time a
neighborhood is recommended on the basis of such scores, those dreadful tests
gain a little more legitimacy and the schooling children receive becomes a
little worse. Not only is it foolish
to sell houses on the basis of standardized test results, but it actually
does damage. The obvious question, then, is: What can
be used as a marker of good schools?
The easiest answer is size. For
many reasons, including but not limited to academic achievement, smaller
schools are usually better. Other
answers may require a little more investigation on your part, as well as a
recognition that the most meaningful indicators of quality can’t always be
reduced to numbers. The schools worth
bragging about are those where students feel as though they’re part of a
caring community, where even kindergartners get the chance to write stories,
where the teachers create democratic classrooms so kids learn how to make
good decisions, where the students can’t stop talking about the projects they
get to do. More: If the
local school has a philosophy where kids do hands-on learning instead of
sitting in desks all day, where they learn in teams instead of alone, where
parents are given qualitative accounts of kids’ improvement instead of
traditional letter grades, then the chances are that school is something
special. If the teachers work hard to
make sure students understand ideas from the inside out -- instead of just
memorizing facts – then people ought to be clamoring to live in that
district. So by all means, talk about the schools when you’re selling houses. Just make sure you’re not using test scores to explain how good those schools really are. |
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