standardized test

“Accommodate, Don’t Discriminate”

Standardized tests are aimed to be inclusive and non-discriminatory. They have a goal of making sure the content is equivalent for all students. If we use different tests for certain groups of people, such as minorities or people with disabilities, we are creating an unfairness.

As former Washington, DC public schools chancellor Michelle Rhee stated, “You can’t separate them [students with disabilities and students without disabilities], and to try to do so creates two, unequal systems, one with accountability and one without it.” With this, Rhee was arguing for an “accommodate, don’t discriminate” approach.

However, creating a separate test/standard of measure is not discriminating, but actually accommodating. For example, people with poor vision wear glasses, the blind use Braille, and the hard-of-hearing use cochlear implants. These are accommodations for people with special needs. If there was not a Braille system in place, we would be discriminating against those with special needs. Just how we accommodate for people in everyday life, we should accommodate for students in school and when testing.

Students with disabilities perform poorly on current standardized tests when compared to their non-disabled counterparts. Creating a different standard of measure for students with disabilities is accommodating their needs. Not doing so creates a bias by not recognizing their needs. Most of the time, students with disabilities are not being taught the same material as their non-disabled counterparts. With so much reliance on test scores and a lack of exposure to certain subject, students with disabilities face many barriers.

Another group standardized testing discriminates towards is English language learners. These students have to take a test, sometimes high-stakes, before they’ve even had the chance to master English. This can cause confusion and a lack of understanding during the test. An excelling student can be mislabeled as failing due to their test scores. If the test is high-stakes and the student does not perform well, they can face many consequences, including being moved to a remedial class, repeating a grade, or not graduating.

Though standardized tests are created to be equal, they fail to recognize that everyone is not equal. This “standard” cannot measure every person’s intellect.

High-Stakes Standardized Testing

Public Education Today

Source: introf10sou.wikispaces.com

This blog lists some of the problems with high-stakes standardized tests, or those in which the results are used to determine possible benefits or punishments. They include, but are not limited to, teachers focusing only on subject areas that will be on the test, cancellation of art programs, the pressure placed on educators to produce good results, and disadvantages for English language learners.

Those Students Standardized Testing Doesn’t Consider

rlm_testing_poster

Source: tcdailyplanet.net

As the accompanying article discusses, standardized tests do not take into account all the people who have to take them. Everyone is different and everyone learns in different ways. One of the populations standardized tests do not consider is students with special needs. As mentioned in the article, an excelling student can be incorrectly categorized as failing. And for the parents of these students, these tests feel like “one more slap in the face” by restating what they already know.

Standardized Tests are an Unreliable Measure of Student Performance

Most standardized tests’ objective is scoring, scoring being something a well programmed machine  does. Subjective people, people who are experts on the various  subject matters on the tests make all the uses of exam results. They decide what topics to include on the test, how questions are worded, which answers are marked correct. The wording of the questions can be made extremely complicated with attempts to throw students off with “distractor” questions and the like, all to prove they really know the answer to the question. Students taking standardized tests answer the same questions –usually in multiple-choice format- and are rewarded for answering quick answers to superficial questions. The standardized tests do not measure the ability to think deeply or creatively in any field, but rather measures test-taking abilities. A research study done by Carol Tittle, Kathy Kelly Benjamin, and Joanne Sacks of the City University of New York has revealed that the very educators of these students do not believe in the value of these tests,  “even teachers do not find standardized achievement tests score to be useful.” The tests usually do not provide teachers with “diagnostic information that helps redirect their teaching”. If teachers do not find these tests helpful, how can they be realiable?

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” – Albert Einstein

A 2001 study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50 to 80% of year-over-year test score improvements were temporary and “caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning,” which means that the standardization of tests is not a reliable source of measuring student performance. The use of standardized tests in schools, and at such young ages creates a very tense atmosphere for students when they do not perform well. Students then struggle to understand what they are being tested on, and why they perform poorly, when the wording of the tests clearly confuses them. As consequence of stress and underperformance, teachers are blamed for the situation, and consequently force students into studying more and more.

In other words, standardized tests are an unreliable measure of student performance, and therefore are not a great way to assess student’s understanding of the topics. Students gain knowledge by connecting what they are learning to what they have already learned in the past. However standardized tests makers create  questions so that students are tested by bits of information, and this differs with their learning style. We should not be measuring the intelligence of our students by tests that those who know best, the very teachers of these students, find to be unreliable. Our students, our children, shouldn’t be reduced to statistics or scores created by people who have never even met them.

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The Simpsons’ Take on Standardized Testing

The clip above touches on several key points regarding the negative aspects of standardized testing. Her reassuring the students that the exam has no affect on their grade shows that there is no educational benefit from taking the test. It also recognizes that the exam will determine their educational progression regardless of what they learned during the year.

Florida Schools Experience Drop in Standardized Testing Scores

In 2012, only 27 percent of Florida’s 4th graders passed the Florida’s Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). A year prior, 81 percent of students passed the same test. The blame is put on the exam itself and not the students. After lowering the passing grade, individuals are worrying that the exams do not reflect students’ intelligence, but that they are a product of education officials trying to get better scores. The two gentlemen in the video believe that the focus should be put on teaching students and not preparing simply for the standardized test.