> without tests nothing prevents a teacher from spending a year of math class discussing how they students feel when they look at numbers and why math is inherently sexist
Tests with no consequences don't prevent a teacher from doing so, either. My experience (and that of teachers I know) is that bad teachers don't particularly care how the tests turn out, since there aren't direct consequences, while good teachers do care and adjust accordingly. This comes about because bad teaching correlates (unsurprisingly) with not caring how the school as a whole looks compared to other schools.
> Could you explain why?
If we abolished tests, bad teachers would continue doing what they do now and what they did before testing, while good teachers would stop spending all their time teaching how to memorize facts and take multiple choice tests, and leave time for teaching how to think.
Tests with no consequences don't prevent a teacher from doing so, either. My experience (and that of teachers I know) is that bad teachers don't particularly care how the tests turn out, since there aren't direct consequences, while good teachers do care and adjust accordingly. This comes about because bad teaching correlates (unsurprisingly) with not caring how the school as a whole looks compared to other schools.
> Could you explain why?
If we abolished tests, bad teachers would continue doing what they do now and what they did before testing, while good teachers would stop spending all their time teaching how to memorize facts and take multiple choice tests, and leave time for teaching how to think.