“[Standardized testing is] one of many tools that should be used to measure student growth and help inform instruction,” State Education Department spokesman, Dennis Tompkins.
Source: http://www.takepart.com
Given the amount of opposition New York has faced, it’s natural they would defend standardized testing. Dennis Tompkins believes standardized testing is key to the success of students but one has to ask, how can a standardized test accurately measure student growth if teachers are simply teaching to the test and not teaching to increase students’ knowledge? According to an Education.com article, teachers become pressured by the government to teach students with the goal to raise test scores. Another point to be made is how can a standardized test measure a student’s growth properly if a student isn’t a good test-taker? The pressures placed on testing not only affects the teachers, but also the students who take the test.
How can an education system expect a student to effectively take a test when they are aware of the importance that is placed on the exam. Last year, prior to implementing a tougher exam, New York Education Commissioner John King also emphasized the importance of standardized tests to classroom instruction.
Shot by: Susan Watts
“The reason we’re changing the assessments is so that they reflect what good instruction against the common core should look like,” King said. “The result probably will be a significant drop in student proficiency.” The last few words of this statement are cringeworthy, shouldn’t a drop in student proficiency be a red flag?
He goes on to say that these test grades do not reflect badly upon the schools, but rather it means that the bar is being set higher. After implementing the exams, the state’s passing rate went from 70 percent to 30 percent.That in itself indicates the bar is being set so high that failure is becoming the norm.
Students who opt out the New York State exams are not penalized and every student is only evaluated on his or her schoolwork. But, this raises another question, why implement a standardized test if you do not plan on using the results for anything? This is a waste of valuable teaching time. According to The Washington Post, students could spend anywhere from 60 to more than 110 hours annually preparing for standardized testing. That time could be used to teach students subjects that they can apply to their lives and not for a standardized examination.
The fact is, kids aren’t meant to be cooped up for hours studying for tests that have little significance on what they actually learn. If test grades are reflecting failure then that’s a sign something is wrong, change has to happen. If we want to measure a children’s growth, standardized testing is clearly not the way to go. To Tompkins and King, and all those that think like them, it’s time for a new measurement, perhaps one that treats kids like kids instead of scores.
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