Assessing students US and Mexico

We all know that standardized testing is an important part of the United States educational system. I think as educators we can all agree there are a lot of flaws in the testing. Proficiency is the expectation- but in reality not all student can and will reach a level of proficiency. In my five years of teaching I have not worked with "typical" students. They have been either students with disabilities or students learning English. Because of my background, I feel the only thing that is truly important is progress and growth. As an ESL teacher I went to bat for many of my students.  Administrators viewed a Basic as a  "fail" because that student was not proficient. I basically said don't you dare tell me this student has "failed" this year because when we look at their growth they grew over two years since last year. But what is reported and cared about is the word- BASIC. After four years of teaching ESL in the same district I finally was able to get administrators to see where I was coming from, and growth began to be celebrated as much as a word.
 
 
 
 
 
Testing in Mexico seems to be just as flawed as the US. It seems that the US's reform has also made it's way South of the Border. Mexico is testing reading and math skills just like the US. It is apparent that the whole world is concerned about the outcome of reading and math tests.

What Mexico is facing is the socio-economic issues of the country. We in the US also have these issues, but the majority of Mexico is struggling. One way Mexico is looking to increase levels of proficiency is by creating longer school years. Ultimately though, like many of us ask, is increasing the school days and hours going to be the best way to increase test scores?

Here are some statistics on Mexico:
 

•  School years varied from 139 days to 183 days, variations that resulted from regional festivals lasting several weeks and extreme weather

• increasing the number of school days benefits students attending schools in better-off localities more than their counterparts attending schools in areas with higher poverty rates, which suggests that the achievement gap between students in better-off and worse-off schools could increase with additional instructional days.

•  The cost of one school day in Mexico is approximately $10.56 U.S. per student, so adding 10 more days of instruction for 11 million students could be very costly.

• Students in Latin America consistently rank near the bottom of global academic performance rankings. For example, two-thirds of Mexico’s schoolchildren perform at basic or below basic levels in math and reading.

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• Twenty years ago in Latin America the challenge was children not going to school. Today, nearly all children under 10 go to school. The question is, what are they learning today, and is it enough to move these countries forward?

http://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/14000