In Conclusion…

I hope this blog has been informative, and I hope it has provided an opportunity to think about just how great an impact standardized tests have.  Standardized tests do not only just affect students and teachers, but they affect everyone else as well.  Schools are of primary importance for any society to function normally.  Students learn information and acquire personal skills needed to become a part of a society capable of progress.  If schools do their jobs right, students will learn how to care and make the world better just a little bit at a time.  Standardized tests remove extracurricular activities and take time out of the time students have in school to learn the extra lessons about life that everyone should know.  Schools should teach students to solve problems in real life where there is not always a set of options to choose from.  If our society chooses to focus how education works around standardized tests, then the only thing students will get out of school is how to eliminate the wrong answers, not how to think for themselves about critical issues.  The most important lessons school can teach are the lessons that make people well rounded and truly intelligent, not just test smart.  Thank you for reading and I hope this blog has opened your mind to the problems inherent with standardized tests.

Perils of High Stakes Testing

High stakes testing is a circumstance where major decisions are based off a test score.⁶ These high stakes tests can be the predominant deciding factor in decisions as important as whether or not a student will be promoted a grade or even whether a student will graduate from high school.  Twenty-three states required the class of 2008 to pass a standardized in order to graduate from high school.⁷ Tests can also determine whether a school attains its accreditation or students are allowed to leave the school because it is “failing”.  This pressure can cause anxiety and stress in students, which in turn will make them perform worse on the test.  In a study of eighteen states that practice high stakes testing, all but one of these states showed decreased or stagnated student learning.⁸ Student learning from this study is based on how well students carry knowledge from one test to another.  This study found that, although test scores can be raised due to test preparation, student learning still either goes down or stays the same.

Table 4
Results from the Analysis of ACT Scores

State	Effect after 1st HSGE		Effect after 2nd HSGE		Effect after 3rd HSGE		Effect after 4th HSGE		Overall Effects
	Short Term	Long Term	Short Term	Long Term	Short Term	Long Term	Short Term	Long Term
Alabama	1984–’85 +0.1	1984–’92 +0.3	1992–’93 +0.1	1992–’01 –0.1					Positive
Florida	n/a	1980–’89 –0.4	1989–’90 –0.1	1989–’95 –0.2	1995–’96 –0.3 (+2%)	1995–’01 –0.6 (+5%)			Negative
Georgia	1983–’84 +0.2	1983–’94 –0.5	1994–’95 –0.1 (0%)	1994–’01 –0.6 (0%)					Negative
Indiana	1999–’00 +0.2 (–1%)	1999–’01 +0.2 (–1%)							Positive
Louisiana	1990–’91 0	1990–’01 –0.2							Negative
Maryland	1986–’87 +0.1	1986–’01 –0.6							Negative
Minnesota	1999–’00 –0.1 (0%)	1999–’01 0 (0%)							Negative
Mississippi	1988–’89 0	1988–’01 –0.4							Negative
Nevada	1980–’81 –0.1	1980–’84 +0.1	1984–’85 –0.3	1984–’91 +0.1	1991–’92 +0.2	1991–’98 +0.1	1998–’99 +0.1 (–1%)	1998–’01 –0.1 (–5%)	Positive
New Jersey	1983–’84 +0.3	1983–’86 –1.4	1986–’87 –0.2	1986–’94 –0.1	1994–’95 –0.5 (–1%)	1994–’01 –0.5 (–1%)			Negative
New Mexico	1989–’90 +0.1	1989–’01 –0.5							Negative
New York	1984–’85 –0.2	1984–’94 –0.5	1994–’95 +0.1 (–1%)	1994–’01 +0.4 (–6%)					Negative
North Carolina	1979–’80 n/a	1980–’97 –1.1	1997–’98 +0.1 (0%)	1997–’01 +0.4 (0%)					Negative
Ohio	1993–’94 +0.1	1993–’01 +0.1							Positive
South Carolina	1989–’90 +0.1	1989–’01 –0.5							Negative
Tennessee	1985–’86 +0.3	1985–’97 –0.3	1997–’98 +0.1 (–7%)	1997–’01 +0.3 (–6%)					Positive
Texas	1986–’87 +0.2	1986–’91 +0.7	1991–1’92 0	1991–’01 0					Positive
Virginia	1985–’86 –0.1	1985–’01 –1.3							Negative

Table Courtesy of Audrey L. Amerin, David C. Berliner both Arizona State University.⁷ This table uses ACT scores to determine whether increased scores on state tests transfer to high test scores on other tests.  The argument behind this study is that if increased tests scores are related to increased learning, then student tests scores will increase across the board for many tests.  In this table, ACT scores decrease twice as much as they increase after the state implements a high stakes test.   This table clearly demonstrates that increased student scores on state mandated standardized tests are not due to an increase in knowledge or intelligence.  Teachers are clearly communicating specific topics and skills for specific tests rather than giving students true knowledge.

 Tests are an unreliable source of data about how well students are learning, but even if tests did measure student learning, placing so much emphasis on one test would still be a poor choice.  No student should be denied a diploma or retained a grade based on a tests score without examining the students other academic qualifications.  Students should be evaluated based on portfolios of their work, grades, and teacher recommendations.  If students knew that the work they did from day to day would be evaluated as a basis for important decisions in their lives, they would probably put more effort into their work.  Students would develop a better work ethic, and they would learn the material more thoroughly.  In the end, this method would ensure that students who work hard and care about learning graduate from high school, not just students who take tests well.

Whatever Happened to Teachers Making Assesments?

 

 

One of the primary problems inherent in standardized testing is the way these tests take away a teachers ability to judge their own students abilities.  Teachers testing students is one of the primary functions in a classroom.  The practice of teachers testing students has taken place in some form as far back as ancient China.⁹  A teacher should be able to get the information he or she needs from a test he or she writes. The advantage of letting teachers evaluate their students is that teachers can write tests based around curriculum that they know they covered in class.  Teachers can plan instruction around material that students struggled with on the teacher’s test.  Students can get personalized help from teachers on specific topics that they do not understand.

 

 

 

Photo Courtesy of www.inmagine.com/bld120/bld120186-photo

This method also saves time, because once teachers make sure their students understand a set of concepts they can move on to do more interesting activities.  Teachers will be able to manage classroom time better, so they can offer students more hands-on learning experiences and more art related activities.  Forcing standardized testing on teachers makes the teachers focus classroom instruction on a list of topics mandated by the state.  Students therefore can only learn basic fundamental concepts that teachers will teach to them in a regimented classroom setting.  Few students will find the concepts interesting and most will learn early in their educational career that school is just a boring process one has to suffer through.  Besides the fact that regimenting instruction around state mandated curriculum is boring, it also does not make sense from a logical standpoint.  Teachers have interaction many hours a day with their students, so teachers will obviously know more about each student than any standardized test ever will.  Administrators and politicians are too far removed from the  battlefield of the classroom to really understand the affect standardized tests have on classrooms.  Tests should be given out by teachers rather than the state because teachers are more knowledgeable about their students than some machine grading a test many miles away.

What Standardized Tests Can’t Measure

Proponents of standardized tests claim that a test can measure how well teachers are teaching students, and how much students are learning.  This is absolutely not true.  First of all, many of my classmates took the SATs several times.  If the SAT is truely a measure of academic aptitude, then a student who takes the SATs multiple times should get the same score (unless the student studies).  However, my friends were able to raise their scores by a couple hundred points without even studying.  This is a clear indication that being familiar with the format of the test and learning test taking strategies through experience have more to do with SAT scores than “scholastic aptitude” does.  The same concept applies to the standardized tests given to elementary and middle school students to determine how well a school is teaching its children.  Teachers can greatly improve their students test scores by emphasising test taking skills.  These examples point to a flaw in what tests can really measure.  Multiple choice standardized tests have no way of measuring problem solving skills or creativity, two very important factors for people in the real world.  Schools should emphasize creativity and problem solving, especially in the early years of a child’s development.  Unfortunately, government programs such as No Child Left Behind Act place importance on improving test scores over everything else.  This means that students will be taught for the test instead of being taught useful life skills.  Tests can not measure the most important lessons that a student can learn from school.

No Child Left Behind, Sort of.

One of the largest impacts George W. Bush’s presidency had on the United States affected education.  Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act has impacted public education through the use of standardized tests.  The basic idea behind the No Child Left Behind Act was to test students and using these test results to tell which schools were struggling to teach children adequately.¹⁰ The politicians and administrators who believed that standardized tests would be a cure all for the ailing public education system made the implicit assumption that tests were an indicator of good education.  However, as I pointed out in the post “Standardized Tests Measure Learning?”, tests indicate only how well a student can take tests.  The No Child Left  Behind Act is also a problem because it is underfunded by about six to seven billion dollars per year.³   The government is being unfair by telling schools that they should be making adequate yearly progress and then underfunding the programs necessary for schools to make these improvements.  The No Child Left Behind Act is poor policy because it places emphasis on meaningless standardized tests and it is underfunded.

Focus on Learning Styles

Public education, for the most part, has been designed to accomodate a wide diversity of students.  For years, administrators and teachers have struggled to make sure that no student is disadvantaged by the way the school is run.  Every child should have the opportunity to succeed in the public education system.  Unfortunately, standardized tests harm certain students’ opportunities to succeed.  Every student in the public education system is different than every other student, so it follows that their respective learning styles will be different.  Standardized tests can harm students by hindering their ability to learn and even become interested in material in their own ways.  Teachers are forced to teach by imposing a  curriculum of rote memorization and standardized drills instead of making their teaching styles flexible based on what children need.  Not every child can learn via rote memorization, some prefer hands on learning to understand material.  Teachers should be able to take whatever measure necessary to make children interested in learning, so they will grow up to be informed adults.  Standardized tests take the opportunity to learn as an individual out of the classroom and replace it with standard ways of learning.

Standardized Tests Measure Learning?

Most parents, teachers, administrators and even people uninvolved with education would probably agree that teaching children to think critically and independently is one of the most important goals of public education.  Students who go through school and learn to enjoy learning and coming up with their own ideas will be better citizens when they graduate.  These students will land better jobs and be more likely to come up with ideas to solve society’s problems.   One of the most glaring problems with standardized tests is their tendency to reduce the true learning a student should get when going through school to shallow thinking.  A study  (Fact 4 in the article) done by the Journal of Educational Psychology found that shallow thinking can be linked to high scores on multiple choice tests.⁴  The study measured scores of children who copied answers and guessed on questions to students who asked questions and genuinely tried to learn.  The results showed that high scores were more likely to be found amoung students who copied answers and guessed on questions.  This becomes a problem when we reward schools and individual students based on these type of test scores.  The results of this study show that administrators and politicians are wrong to reward schools based purely of test scores alone.

Why Thinking About Standardized Tests is Important

Standardized testing is a crucial debate in American public policy.  Teachers, administrators and, most of all, students will realize the importance of this debate.  However, not everyone may realize how much we need to reform the standardized testing practices in modern education.  Standardized tests are currently the primary focus for many schools in the public education system.  At least 44% of schools in a study by the Center for Education Policy were willing to admit to cutting instructional time for subjects that would not matter on standardized tests.¹ Wake Forest decided last year that high school

GPA was a better factor in predicting college success than the SAT, so Wake Forest no longer requires SATs for admission.  Recently, an article by Joseph Vetter in Reader’s Digest pointed out many low points about standardized tests.⁵ An article in USA today said that teacher’s in Washington D.C.  could make as much as $100,000 a year depending on how their students do on standardized tests.²  Clearly standardized tests are a topic of debate that needs to be addressed.

Welcome to My Blog

Welcome to Sam’s final project blog.  This is my final project for an introductory composition class at Purdue University.  The purpose of this blog is to communicate understanding about the shortcomings of standardized tests.  I believe that standardized tests do more harm than good, contrary to arguments made by many administrators and politicians.  From first hand experience and careful research I know many people feel the same way I do about the excess regulation and watering down of curriculum brought about by a new emphasis on teaching only skills that will be useful on a standardized test.  I know many teachers who feel that standardized tests are taking away their freedom to teach in creative ways that actually make students interested in the subject matter.  Personally, I know the stress that standardized tests can put on  students.  Now is the time for people to have their voices heard about how standardized tests are impacting our schools and our society.  If you have something interesting or relevant to say about standardized tests please post your ideas.  Even if you disagree with my stance, I welcome your input. 

 

Photo Courtesy of Ian Smith/Vancouver Sun Files www.vancouversun.com/…/1063369/story.html