Standardized Testing

Not having a better solution (yet) is not a good reason to stick to a system we know is broken.

Standardized testing measures everyone against each other to determine a statistical average, and to compare students against their peers. Progressive research continues to demonstrate that this type of thinking is outdated, and that measuring every student on the exact same metric might give an accurate representation to how well those academic subjects are memorized.

These studies go well beyond college as well. A recent student shows that there is no significant difference in performance between students who do and do not submit SAT or ACT scores when applying to universities.

According to the University of North Carolina, standardized test results do predict success in postgraduate programs - so it’s not to say that they are useless.  However, only 8% of the United States population hold Graduate degrees.  It makes since to voluntarily take a standardized test when considering postgraduate school, as it may help predict how successful you would be in that environment. Up until that point in a person’s life, the benefits become much more difficult to define.

One problem with the standardized test is what the goal is when they are put into place. We seem to be a society that loves numbers, percentages and to criticize. Most standardized tests today, especially in the k-12 world, are used to measure success, and not to predict success.  This means that the one major benefit that I was able to find when it comes to standardized tests (the fact that the results are a good predictor of success)  are just a happy side effect and not the purpose of the test in the first place.

The reason the ill defined goal becomes an issue is because good ‘standardized test results’ are the goal, but what those test results represent seems blurry. Do they represent whether the school system did a good job? Does it represent if the school needs more money, or needs its funding cut?  What do we gain from standardized testing?

The answer to this question depends on who you ask, and what side of the argument you are on. One side likes to point out that “93% of studies in the last 100 years show that standardized testing has a positive effect on student achievement.”  On the other side you’ll hear “A May 26, 2011, National Research Council report found no evidence test-based incentive programs are working:”

I’m always wary of statistics like this because they seem to be worded specifically to support the idea that the writer wants to support. 93% of studies in the last 100 years show a positive impact, but how did that number change over time? If we just look at tests in the last 10 years, do we see the same results?

There are some pro arguments that more abstract benefits come from standardized tests. For example, proponents argue that separating minorities or non-english speaking students into separate testing categories creates an unequal system which would result in more segregation. This line of thinking makes sense to me, but I still believe that there are options to explore that can accomplish these same things without the drawbacks of standardized tests.

Overall I think we need to agree on an educational philosophy. What is education in America? What is the goal of education?  Only then can we decide truly if standardized testing has it’s place in accomplishing that goal. Right now the goal seems to be “get a good job”, but we’ve seen that the high school education isn’t preparing anyone for getting those jobs right now. So maybe that needs to change.