Weighing the benefits and drawbacks of standardized testing - Essay Example

Running head: Weighing the Benefits Weighing the Benefits and Drawbacks of Standardized Testing Weighing the Benefits and Drawbacks of Standardized Testing The prevalent use of standardized tests has caused much controversy in recent years. Some feel that they have an important place in helping to assess student ability and school quality, while others feel that they have very little validity, and detract significantly from our children's educational experience. A great deal of studies have been published in attempt to understand the true effect that standardized tests have on education, yet there has been little consensus among opposing sides. No matter one's position on the subject, a clear understanding of both the pros and cons of standardized testing will aid our country in its quest to improve the quality of education for all of our students. If administrators and policy-makers would take into account both the benefits and the drawbacks of standardized testing, they could work to create educational policies that take advantage of the data that standardized tests offer, while not allowing test bias or an overemphasis on test scores to detract from our student's education. Benefits of Standardized Tests The driving force behind the prevalent use of standardized tests in school districts across the country is a belief that they will hold schools and teachers accountable for each student, and that no child will be allowed to slip through the cracks. This is essentially the premise of the No Child Left Behind Act passed in 2002, which uses standardized test scores to determine whether or not schools are making adequate progress. In a recent report from the US department of education entitled "Building on Results: A Blueprint for Strengthening the No Child Left Behind Act" (2007), George W. Bush reiterates that this policy is first and foremost an effort to end "the soft bigotry of low expectations" (p 1). In addition to bridging the achievement gaps between minority populations and wealthier populations, Bush also stated that: "NCLB is an important way to make sure America remains competitive in the 21st century. We're living in a global world. See, the education system must compete with education systems in China and India. If we fail to give our students the skills necessary to compete in the world of the 21st century, the jobs will go elsewhere" (Hursh, 2007, 498). Proponents of NCLB, argue that standardized tests are the best tool that we have at our disposal to determine whether schools are truly bridging the achievement gaps and preparing students to compete in the global economy of the 21st century. The reason that standardized tests are an indispensable part of school success according to proponents of NCLB, stems from their belief that it is impossible to know if students are learning anything without assessment. Grant Wiggins, author of Understanding by Design (2006), offers a humorous, but poignant anecdote about what happens when assessment is not incorporated into classroom instruction: A teacher claims to have taught his dog to talk, yet when the teacher's friend wants to see proof of the dog being able to talk, the teacher modifies her claim: "I taught him to talk, but I didn't say he learned it" (p. 228). Without evaluation, neither teachers nor students can ever know if they have grasped the material that has been taught, and they become the talking dogs that have not actually learned to talk. Without evaluation, teaching can become a dull and listless act that fails to take into account whether students are actually learning and whether they are able to analyze and create meaning out of the new experiences they have had in class. Richard Phelps explains the benefits of standardized tests in Kill the Messenger: The War on Standardized Testing (2003), which has been called the definitive defense of standardized testing. Phelps and other proponents of standardized tests believe that standardized tests are an effective measure of all things related to education: "they can describe the performance of a teacher, a student, a curriculum, a textbook, a school, a program or a state policy" (p. 234). One might argue that there are many ways to assess student progress aside from standardized testing, such as portfolios and other forms of authentic testing. He says to those who would rather leave assessment up to individual teachers and districts: "Self-evaluation is an oxymoron. Nonetheless, that is the type of evaluation strongly preferred by many mainstream education professors and administrators" (p. 3). Phelps argues that standardized tests have become a significant threat to administrators and teachers alike: "Once mandated, however, they became a threat to educator control of schools. Test-based accountability made it possible for the lay public and their elected representatives to form an accurate opinion of teacher, school, and district performance and to intervene if dissatisfied" (xvi). Thus the reason standardized testing is absolutely necessary, according to Phelps, is that assessment must be done by outsiders if it is to be legitimate and accurate. Phelps argues that the reason why so many educators would prefer to keep assessment in their own hands and fight against standardized tests primarily because they do not want to be held accountable for their results. Furthermore, Phelps argues that the vast majority of the American public favors standardized testing as a way to evaluate student learning: "Parents and policymakers favor testing as a way of knowing how much students are learning. By contrast, educators and their intellectual allies would prefer to replace tests with assessments such as portfolios of student workThe war on standardized testing arises from this difference" (p. xv). One last reason that Phelps and other advocates of standardized tests point to when they argue in favor of standardized test is that it has helped to raise standards and expectations: "both fairer selection and improved standards of teaching and learning in both universities and schools" (Phelps, 2003). Proponents of standardized tests believe that standardized tests are the best means to achieve accountability in our schools, which will ultimately lead towards an end to the achievement gap and a workforce that will help America compete in the global economy. They are the most practical and legitimate way to really measure the student progress and school quality. Furthermore, mass volumes of tests can be graded quickly and consistently, which makes them more practical when it comes to assessing millions of children. Negative Effects of Standardized Tests The arguments against standardized tests are plentiful these days. Critics find fault with everything from the inability of the tests to assess real learning to the negative effects that "over-testing" can lead to. One of the most fundamental arguments against standardized tests centers around the way that they shape student attitudes and beliefs about education. A very well-known critic of standardized tests is Alfie Kohn, who has outlined what he believes to be the fundamental and irredeemable flaws of standardized tests. Kohn wrote a comprehensive and definitive book detailing the negative effects of standardized test entitled The Case Against Standardized Testing (2000). Above all, he argues that "standardized tests can't measure initiative, creativity, imagination, conceptual thinking, curiosity, effort, irony, etc. What they can measure and count are isolated skills, specific facts and functions, the least interesting and least significant aspects of learning" (p. 12). Kohn and other critics maintain that standardized tests, by their nature cannot measure the critical thinking and problem-solving skills that should be at the core of education in our schools. Kohn argues that not only do standardized tests fail to tell us about the "significant aspects of learning," they also fail to tell us anything about a student's long-term progress, because the only person who is really in the position to judge a student's progress throughout a year is their teacher. He maintains that the point of assessment in the first place is to see how students have grown: "Assessment should be focused on students' learning over time by the person in the best position to judge the quality of that learning. There's an inherent problem with any one-shot test that's designed and then scored by somebody far away" (p. 57). In addition to the fact that standardized tests do not test real learning or progress, Alfie Kohn has also argued vehemently that there is a great deal of pressure on students to excel on standardized tests. In many states, graduation and passing to the next grade level often depend on whether or not students pass standardized tests. For example, students in Georgia must pass the Georgia High School Graduation Test (GHSGT) if they are to graduate. Georgia even gives its kindergarteners a standardized assessment. This pressure that begins at a very early age can significantly reduce students' desire to learn. Alfie Kohn argues, "Scores of studies in social psychology and related fields have demonstrated that extrinsic motivators frequently undermine intrinsic motivation" (p. 177). If our hope is to create students who value education and learning-for-learning sake, then standardized tests are detrimental to this goal. Along a similar vein, David Hursh argues in "Assessing No Child Left Behind and the Rise of Neoliberal Education Policies" (2007) that by "teaching to the test, we subjugate education to the goal of producing workers who will increase our economic productivity within a globalized economy, rather than working to answer the question of how we best develop a world that supports human welfare and planetary health" (p. 515). Depending on one's belief regarding the purpose of education, this disadvantage of standardized testing might carry significant weight or very little weight. As Kohn and Hursh argue, standardized tests often undermine the intrinsic motivation that students have in regards to their education. Peter Sachs takes this idea even further in his book entitled Standardized minds: The high prices of America's testing culture and what we can do to change it. Sachs also argues that standardized tests are the culprit for undermining the intrinsic motivation of both student and teacher: "Test-driven classrooms exacerbate boredom, fear, lethargy, promoting all manner of mechanical behaviors on the part of teachers, students; and schools, and bleed school children of their natural love of learning" (p. 256). Some critics such as Bobbie Solley (2007) suggest that not only do standardized tests do a poor job of assessing real learning as Alfie Kohn argues, but they also negatively impact the curriculum: Because of the increased pressure on teachers for their children to do well on standardized tests, the curriculum has been narrowed. The curriculum, and thus instructional time, has shifted to only those areas that are to be tested. In many instances, the time given to art, music, creative writing, physical education, and recess has either been reduced or dropped altogether in favor of even more intensive drilling on the test subjects (p 31). One final significant disadvantage of standardized tests is that they have continually shown biases. Michelle Phillips addresses this in her article entitled "Standardized tests aren't like t-shirts, one size doesn't fit all" (2006). Her article explains how standardized tests have repeatedly discriminated against minorities: "There are biases inherently built in, in so many aspects of testing. The test questions are written and graded based upon the norms of White middle-class America, and are graded by the same people the test caters to" (p. 52). She goes on to give specific examples of how a student from a different cultural or socioeconomic background might confuse test questions. For example, one question asked students to relate a time when they or someone they knew felt embarrassed. Many Spanish-speaking students wrote about a pregnancy, because the word "embarrassed" sounds like the word for pregnant in Spanish. Phillips goes to elaborate on just how much standardized tests discriminate against English Language Learners: Language proficiency plays a large part in student performance on standardized test. In spite of differences in content, it may be that for certain test-takers language proficiency is the most important contributor to performance. The most obvious problem presented to non-native English speakers or to those who speak a nonstandard variety of English is whether they have familiarity with or knowledge of the words and linguistic structure of standard English (p. 57). Michelle Philips discusses one last drawback of standardized tests. She explains that standardized tests have often been used as a way to track students and keep them in remedial classes. She warns: The students are labeled by their test scores and have a hard time escaping or changing this label. They are tracked and only allowed to take certain classes, and these classes are typically taught at the lowest level. The students are not challenged, they are basically being taught how to pass the test and nothing more. They have low expectations placed upon them and aren't expected to achieve. They continue to fall behind and increase the testing gap in student performance of minority students (p. 58). The drawbacks of standardized tests are numerous and varied. Not only have critics questioned their inherent value due to the limitations of what they can measure, but they also blame them for extinguishing curiosity and delight in learning for learning's sake. Conclusion: To some degree, the question of how standardized tests should be used in our nation's schools depends on what we believe the purpose of education should be. If we hope to develop the total student who is creative, inquisitive and critical; and if we believe in the ability of our teacher's to craft meaningful curriculum that will meet each student's current ability levels, then standardized tests will not seem important. If our goal is to mass-produce workers who all have the same knowledge, then standardized tests will be a good way to determine if schools and students are succeeding or failing in this goal. However, these two goals of education needn't be mutually exclusive. If both sides could engage in open-minded discussions, a balance might be reached whereby tests could provide us with useful information without putting a damper on student learning or motivation. References Hursh, D. (2007). Assesing No Child Left Behind and the Rise of Neoliberal Education Policies. American Educational Research Journal; 44(3): 493-518. Kohn, Alfie (2000). The case against standardized testing: Raising the scores, ruining the schools. Phelps , Richard (2003). Kill the messenger: The war on standardized testing. Newbrunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Phillips, M. (2006) "Standardized test aren't like t-shirts: one size doesn't fit all. Multicultural Education14.1(Fall):52-60 Sacks, P. (1999). Standardized minds: The high prices of America's testing culture and what we can do to change it. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. Solley, B. A. (2007) "On standardized testing: an ACEI position paper." Childhood Education84.1(Fall): 31-7. U.S. Department of Education. (2007). Building on Results: A Blueprint for Strengthening The No Child Left Behind Act. Washington D.C.:2007. Wiggins, G. & McTigh, T. (2006). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Read More