Rethinking Testing

29 April 2020

A standardized achievement test can help determine areas in which a student may need additional instruction, serve as a helpful check of the ongoing progress of a student over the course of multiple school years, and provide actionable insight into how a student may perform on the aptitude tests required for college entrance. A standardized achievement test cannot measure a student’s potential for learning; provide useful insight into the effectiveness of the test-taker’s teachers; or measure how good or bad teachers, schools, or school systems are.

Students:  Standardized tests are intrinsically biased. They perpetuate privilege. They reward the ability to rotely memorize and encourage students to work on test-taking “strategies” rather than on analytical thinking and deep subject-matter understanding. They lead to anxiety and often even negative feelings about school in general.

Teachers:  They force subject area compartmentalization over cross curriculum teaching. Pressure to “teach to the test” limits teachers’ ability to adapt to learner differences and be creative in their teaching. The tests take away from meaningful instructional time. In reality, standardized tests lessen the appeal of teaching as a profession.

Schools: They give control of the curriculum to testing companies and undermine school leaders, potentially harming administrator/teacher relationships in the process. They go against the logical premise that those working closely with teachers and students are best suited to evaluate their progress and success.

School Systems:  They encourage the use of artificial incentives over the natural rewards of a job well done. They emphasize the importance of minimal achievement over graduated progress and de-emphasize the necessity of ongoing, individualized evaluation. They force the majority of resources to be focused on learners who test at a specific level (those just shy of the testing benchmark) over the use of resources to benefit all learners.