This Week In Education: Bruno: Teaching Content Vs. "Teaching To The Test"

This Week In Education: Bruno: Teaching Content Vs. "Teaching To The Test":

Bruno: Teaching Content Vs. "Teaching To The Test"

by Paul Bruno

The Obama administration has been taking a lot of flak - most recently from Jon Stewart - for criticizing "teaching to the test" while simultaneously pushing policies that are arguably going to encourage exactly that sort of behavior by teachers and school officials.

I think it's fair enough to blame President Obama to the extent that his policies promote ineffective instruction. At the same time, though, the phrase "teaching to the test" masks a lot of variability in what educators are actually doing to improve their scores, and it's not always obvious that when schools "teach to the test" they're helping themselves at all.

Take curriculum narrowing, for example. On the one hand, it seems clear that many schools have reduced time spent on other subjects to focus on reading and math, and that this is