Currently, standards are not used by Yeshivos at all. For example, there is no one who has a clear idea of what first grade students should know by the end of first grade. This is a tremendous problem, as there is no goal for students to strive towards and there is no way of tracking whether students (and teachers) are succeeding.
Just teaching without having standards in place can be compared to someone who heads out for a road trip, and uses a detailed map but has no idea where he/she is going. It becomes very difficult to determine whether the trip was successful if there was no end-goal in place.
Once standards are established, teachers and principals will be able to design activities and develop lesson plans that will meet the final goal. We can then use assessments to track what students are learning and develop strategies to reteach weak areas.
Currently, assessments (tests) are given at the end of a semester or unit. The assessment is administered, some students pass, others fail, and the class forges ahead to the next topic. This state of affairs is strikingly similar to an autopsy, which may provide some interesting information but is incapable of bringing the patient back to life.
The primary problems with the current state of assessments can be summarized as follows:
- Assessments are given at the end of semesters/units.
- Assessments are not meaningful enough to provide data about student learning because they are not synchronized with a set of standards and objectives.
- Assessments are not analyzed to identify the areas of success and failure, and the assessments are certainly not used to reteach weak areas and to guide future instruction.