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Teaching Is
More Than
Test Scores
To the Editor:
I have been following the letters to the editor concerning the quality of Rappahannock's schools. For almost a half century (I am 74 years old), I was an educator, working as an elementary and high school principal and a high school teacher. I also taught college courses.
1 get concerned when 1 see school board members or anyone else judging a school mainly on its test scores. There is more to developing sound young people than making sure that they perform well on tests.
Tests are prepared by large corporations that hire so-called experts to develop questions that are supposed to tell us what a child has learned. Many of the questions are ambiguous. Many of them implicitly assume that you have the same background as the person who wrote the test. You need a particular kind of test-taking ability to do well on the tests. You may know the answers, for example, but you may not be able to produce them quickly under time pressure.
Instead of focusing on test results, I believe a better evaluation'of a class or school is the interrelationship between, the teachers and students. It takes caring teachers to motivate students to do their best, to teach them the thinking and behavior that make life happy and productive.
I learned this lesson long ago when I was taking a graduate course at a large university. I was one of perhaps 100 students in the class. One day I found myself sharing an elevator with the professor, I felt intimidated and tried to make myself small in the corner. The professor turned to me and said, "Mr. Price, how do you like the
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