Standardized Tests

Standardized Tests used for Accountability

I feel standardized tests does have a place in public schools but should not have such a negative influence on school who do not make “the grade”. Schools who do not make AYP are being punished instead of being helped. If we want to succeed as a society we need to help schools who are struggling.

The article, How Standardized Testing Damages Education it states, “No test is good enough to serve as the sole or primary basis for important educational decisions.” I think this statement is completely true. We cannot use one measurement to determine important aspects of curriculum and student placement. The old saying measure twice, cut once applies to this situation as well. We need to have multiple data to make decisions, which should come from a variety of assessments. Performance-based assessments can provide schools will a better overall view of a student. These assessments allow the child to express themselves in many different ways instead of just through circling the correct multiple-choice answer.

Another important fact we need to consider when using standardized tests, it the influence of out of school factors. “Noninstructional factors explain most of the variance among test scores when schools or districts are compared. A study of math results on the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that the combination of four such variables (number of parents living at home, parents' educational background, type of community, and poverty rate) accounted for a whopping 89 percent of the differences in state scores.” http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/staiv.htm

I agree that schools need to be held accountable for their student achievement, but we should not taking their funding away forcing them to close their doors. These are the schools that need support. The other problem is that we expect each school to come up with a program to improve their scores, no one is there to help them devise a school improvement plan or give suggestions to what has worked for similar schools.

My other problem with standardized tests is related to how the media reports scores. The media likes to play games and report information that is easily manipulated and the public ends up twisting the truth. Or else they focus in on a minor aspect of the entire assessment report.