Standardized testing?

Something i wrote for a class

Standardized testing- Final draft Kalli Hooper 5-7 pgs

     Albert Einstein defined insanity as “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” and it seems the schooling system has fallen into that pattern. Every year thousands of students across America sit for hours ferociously filling in bubbles in hopes of getting a respectable score on their standardized tests. And every year, America’s test scores slip (Jaschik). So the tests are made harder, students pushed further and yet the downward spiral continues. Maybe it’s time to try something different.

         Standardized tests are quickly beginning to be the sole way to evaluate a student’s academic achievement and ability. With new laws such as No Child Left Behind and policies from the Obama administration, the pressure on students and schools is higher than ever before. There has been huge controversy over whether or not standardized testing should be high-stakes. High-stakes tests are one-shot chances that can affect a student’s entrance to college, graduation of high school, or grade promotion. While Obama and other politicians throw around statements such as “Higher standards,” and “holding schools accountable”, many teachers and students protest.

     Some may argue that there is no better way to measure academic success. Or that this new kind of testing holds schools accountable for their lack of proper teaching (Meador Par. 2). It is true that these tests allow for easy comparisons of student and schools all across the board and using them as a checkpoint every once in a while wouldn’t hurt; but that’s not the case. Schools are scrutinized, seized by the state, and shut down based on nothing else than their students’ scores. Standardized testing should be limited and considered lightly because it is an unfair, inaccurate way to measure a person’s ability.

     Standardized testing is an inaccurate way to ensure kids are prepared for college and real life situations. The number of kids being deemed “unprepared” for college work has been increasing and ACT scores have seen no improvement (Strauss Par. 4). Standardized tests attempt to prove that students are becoming smarter, without the realization that the term smart is ambiguous. Politically, the United States wants to be viewed as the ‘smartest’ or ‘most educated’ country. However, the new pushes in education are shortsighted and diminished the real objective behind schooling in the first place. It’s time to get political motives out of the classroom.  

   In her article for The Washington Post, Valerie Strauss writes that “Although editorial boards would like to think that they shape the public’s thinking, parents sense that the interests of their children are being swept aside in a frantic rush to prepare workers for global economic contests” (Par. 11). Today, the economy is in a crisis. Corporations and businesses are shipping out jobs to the cheapest most educated options anywhere they can find them. Unfortunately, politicians have failed to realize that making tests harder does not make kids smarter. That being said, the ‘future workers’ of the country are found stranded in a hole.

       I remember sitting in biology class my freshman year of high school, talking about Punnent squares. The teacher then passed out a worksheet, on the front side there was incomplete dominance and on the back, crossed out, there was co-dominance. When the class questioned my teacher as to why we aren’t learning about co-dominance his reply was quick and simple. “It’s no longer on the state test, don’t worry about it.”  That statement was the grave of education. Here lies education, a beloved resource, guide and friend tragically misunderstood and killed by authorities. It wasn’t on the test, that’s why it wasn’t important. Here lies the next problem with standardized tests, they are unfair.

     Standardized tests are created to test a wide range of knowledge in only a few questions. That means that for each unit of material a student learns they get only one or two questions to decipher whether or not they have mastered the material.  “Deciding what terms to include on the test, how questions are worded, which answers are scored as “correct,” how the test is administered, and the uses of exam results are all made by subjective human beings” (Fairtest Par. 2). Imagine learning 200 Spanish words only to be tested on two. That’s a lot of pressure on those two words. And why those two words anyways? What makes one fact better than another? It turns out that the companies who create standardized tests have a bit of a confusing operation going on. When giving out sample tests, items that are answered correctly by 40-60% of participants are deemed okay to put on the test (Popham). The idea is to spread out the sufficient students from the ones who are falling behind. However, the material answered correctly by the majority of students is that way because it is important. Teachers stress material they think is essential and by using only “middle difficulty items” they discredit the most valuable information being taught.

      Another flaw in the creation of the test is the emphasis on comparing students. A standardizes test is best used as an individual measure of progress. Trying to purposely create a gap between students is unnecessary and only good for, well, political reasons. Education is a grey area, and it is best to let that grey area exist. 

      Along with this, standardized tests are unfair because they tend to favor those of higher socioeconomic backgrounds. If a person has grown up in an environment that uses the same vocabulary the test is using, comprehending the question and answers won’t be much of an issue. This being said, it’s not very shocking that low-income students score lower on standardized tests. For starters, things such as vocabulary on the SAT can be largely influenced by the words one absorbs from their family or peers. If one grows up in a family that speaks with perfect grammar, their sentence structure will naturally be “correct”. This is what makes the new policies that evaluate teachers based on student performance on these kinds of tests scary.

     A teacher who works at an upper-middle class school will likely have students with parents who graduated from high school and earned some sort of college degree. These students have been absorbing information relevant to the standardized test their whole lives. Whether it be through vocabulary, trips to the science museum, or tutors. These students will naturally do better regardless of how well they are being taught. Teachers who have students in poorer areas tend to have students whose parents haven’t gone further than high school. It is possible; too, that education is a backburner issue for those students. In a personal interview, North Farmington English teacher Parker Salowhich said “If a kid is more worried with having a blanket so they don’t freeze or having food on the table, chances are they aren’t going to be focusing on their test scores”. The teachers of lower-income students could be better instructors than the ones that teach high income students, but their job is completely different.  If a child is expected to make money to keep the family from starving than they aren’t concerning themselves with vocabulary and formulas because it seems and perhaps is, trivial. This teacher then has to convince a group of students who can’t afford college and have little motivation to stay in school that they should pay attention and care about their education.

     So what are these tests really testing? The multiple-choice format of these tests makes it difficult to test for problem solving ability or questioning. A few months ago I took the AP United States history standardized test. I had taken the course, and gone over the material again on my own time but the reality was that the test was testing memory rather than understanding. I do not have a good memory. I can describe was happened during the civil war and the great awakening and why, but there is no way my brain is going to spit out names or dates. That is because when a student listens to a lecture on the Civil war their brain is busy understanding major concepts, not minor details. That’s like taking a test on The Great Gatsby and being asked what page number Daisy had tea with Nick. Standardized tests value memorization and superficial thinking (Pollard Par. 9).

     When questioned about what he thought of the ACT and SAT tests Salowhich said “it tests how well you take a test, that’s all” and this can’t be denied. The time limits on standardized tests immediately turn taking them into a round of minute-to-win-it. If one is really being tested on what they know, it shouldn’t matter if it takes them five minutes or twelve hours. I cannot tell you how many times I have left a test only to have a sudden epiphany as to what the correct answer really was. Much of the anxiety of testing could be diminished by getting rid of the time limit. It has been proven time and time again that when stress is high, performance suffers (Bernstein Par. 2). With the new label on the ACT that gives instructions on how to handle the packet if a student throws up on it, stress seems to be pretty high.

     Standardized tests aren’t bad for assessing areas a student needs to improve upon, but making them high-stakes is detrimental to both a student’s education and self esteem. “I think the administration can lose sight of…that they are not shuffling numbers and data but kids and opportunities,” Said Michael Yoscovitch, the band instructor at North Farmington high school in a personal interview. Requiring a certain test score for a student in order to graduate from high school, move up a grade, or have a teacher keep their job encourages teaching to the test and has shown no positive impact on education.  (Heinrich, par. 6) Using test scores as an incentive for teachers to earn more money is disturbing. Leave the working on commission to the sales staff at Macy’s, please. Education is not a game or a business. Although the United States is swallowed by consumerism, it needs to be realized that students are not costumers. The point is not to have the numbers go up, it’s not to cram their brains full of facts, it’s to teach problem solving skills and to ignite a passion for learning.

     The overdependence of standardized testing turns education into a business rather than a way of life. Kids are no longer concerned with what they actually know because they are more worried about what they get on a high-stakes standardized test. Policies and tests push students into cheating and superficial thinking because of the stress placed on them. The question should be; “How do you solve that equation?” rather than “what’s the answer to number 16?”

      It should be reminded that students are not machines created to puke back facts crammed into their heads, but human beings who learn from experience. With standardized testing being viewed as something valuable, students learn to value answers rather than process. Imagine if a group of scientists googled “How to cure cancer,” and gave up when they couldn’t find a quick answer. 

“When we stop thinking about intelligence as a static and comparable trait, and start thinking about how we adapt to our circumstances, we will all be better off because we will open up a more inclusive space for personal growth.” (Michaelis, Par. 11)