Wasting money on BlackLine Test Practice Books

Teaching to the Test stress pushes us to do strange things.

The lure of plopping down your money for BlackLine Master Books to enable our Teaching to the Test efforts is great.

It is psychologically inviting and mentally comforting to just pick up something that will save you hours of work for only $12.95, or $14.95, or $16.95.

But, this is strange solace.

The reason that these BlackLine Master practice tests fail to drive your Teaching to the Test success is that the tests never cover what you are teaching.

This causes a break from what you were teaching to what is in the BlackLine practice book. What a "bummer."

Worse, students get the idea (and you don't have to tell them either) that testing is something apart from real learning.

Besides, students know about the stress that teachers are under about "raising test scores." They feel the pressure, too.

So, Teaching to the Test suffers when you "slap a BlackLine master test practice activity on students because their stress levels jump..."You are testing your students on something that you haven't taught."

So, Teaching to the Test has to be a "Something else kind of thing" than BlackLine master practice book activities to be successful.

Just what that is, we'll cover in subsequent posting of this blog.

If you have invested in BlackLine master Teaching to the Test books, don't throw them away. But, be prepared to use them in more useful ways than photocopying class sets and sitting students quietly at their desks for hours while you administer them in "test-like" settings.

You can do better, and we'll reveal how.


Tell your friends about our Teaching to the Test Blog.

Teaching to the Test

First Day of School: Your Teaching to the Test is Already Behind!

You already have a late start for building your Teaching to the Test strategies.

What? How can you be behind on the first day of school?

Easy! Your Teaching to the Test planning should have started weeks ago.

When you were decorating your room, office, or teaching space (some of you don't have real rooms), you spent too much time worrying about how the learning environment would look on the outside.

But it is the "inside the head" space of your students, and the inside the bubble sheet circles or ovals that really count in this modern, media-driven test craze.

Spend more time planning your Teaching to the Test strategies, and less time on decorating. After all, if you have a principal, administrator or supervisor that is "test-scared" for their job; you have to hold a likewise concern for your job.

Start planning your Teaching to the Test strategy by listing the weeks that you have before the high-stakes test. (These schedules are published already.)

Then, develop a weekly plan for exactly what you will do in your Teaching to the Test efforts.

Do not "slack off" on this. Write everything down, put these items on your calendar. Create "tickler files." Do anything to ensure that you spend time each day furthering your students testable abilities.

Teaching to the Test is not a one shot deal. It is an every day affair.

Think of your Teaching to the Test obligation as something like "doing the dishes."

What happens if you "slack off for a few days" and don't wash the dishes?

Bad smells are bug magnets. And do you want company to visit and see the mess that your kitchen is in? What do the stacks of messy dishes tell about you.

In the same way, failing in your daily Teaching to the Test chores is like sweeping dirt under the rug.

So get your Teaching to the Test program in place.

And, be sure to tell your friends and colleagues about this blog.

Teaching to the Test

Teaching to the Test is not all Bad

Teaching to the Test does not have to mean stepping out of the K12 curriculum to practice on unrelated materials.

Teaching to the Test can be done using teacher-made tests that focus upon exactly what you are teaching.

The process is easy, and the opportunities for creative strategies such as group projects, debates, voting on the answers, take-home test, etc.

All you need is a template.

You can find a sample template at:

Test Practice Template

Employing creative Teaching to the Test strategies means that your principal will commend your lesson planning.


Tell your friends about our Teaching to the Test Blog.

Teaching to the Test

Teaching to the Test

Teaching to the Test is often shunned as a "dirty little practice."

But the "dirty little secret" is that "everyone is doing it" nowadays because of pressure upon teachers to "bring up test scores."

What if you could learn to teach to the test in a way that actually was valuable to your students?

That is where this Teaching to the Test Blog comes in.

Teaching to the Test