In 20 Years We Will Be Saying “I Can't Believe We Focused on Standardized Tests”

The history of standarized testing is not complicated. It has many parts and pieces to the puzzle, but it is not difficult to understand.

Politicians and policymakers wanted a way to identify "high-performing" and "low-performing" schools and teachers.

Companies wanted a way to sell millions of dollars worth of "testing materials" to states and schools.

The solution: Give one test per year in each "subject area". Make it multiple-choice so it is easy to administer and grade. Don't let anyone know the results until the students are already in the next grade. Tie school funding and evaluations to this single test. Then do it all over again next year.

Parents, teachers, and students (for the most part) thought this was a bad idea.

Nevertheless, standardized testing prevailed and has continued to be a  completely ineffective way to improve education across the country (and world). 

Imagine For A Moment...

Imagine for a moment you are a teacher. The state has now told you that your students have to take a standardized test towards the end of the school year on Algebra.

What's on the test? Well  74 different standards are "covered"  so really it could be anything from the entire year.

Your students are all at varying levels of algebraic understanding (which is completely normal and understandable). They are all different types of learners, with all kinds of unique needs.

Your job is to get them all to the same level of "proficiency" by the end of the year.

The ONLY way students can demonstrate that proficiency is in a high-stakes multiple choice test. Oh yeah, and each answer set has one answer that basically is tricking you into thinking it is the correct answer.

Also, if you just guess you have at least a 25% chance of getting it correct.

The kicker is, it doesn't really matter to the students. They don't have to do well on this standardized assessment if they don't want to.

For the teacher, however, it is a big piece of how they are being evaluated in their job.

Now, the students could show all kinds of understanding and proficiency in their class. They could explain the process, walk through their steps of each problem, showing where they went wrong and how they fixed it. They could do this over and over again on all kinds of performance tasks....but if they get a few multiple-choice questions wrong on one assessment---none of that matters.

When will you find out if the students were successful in doing this? Oh, yeah...the following school year. When you don't teach those students anymore and cannot help in any of the "gaps" the test data showed.

But, what about our students...

Maybe even worse  is the impact this has had on students. 

Imagine thinking the only meaningful way you can show your understanding is on a multiple-choice test.

Imagine  being in a system that makes you sit for hours and take tests , then doesn't even give you feedback on how you did, or where to improve, or what it all means until months later.

Imagine looking at those results and thinking you are "not smart" or "stink at math or reading" because of this test.

Imagine not caring at all about the test and just filling in the bubbles because you are so over this process.

Imagine actually caring, having anxiety and other issues because of the high-stakes nature of these assessments.

As Derek Thompson so aptly put in his recent Atlantic piece, " We’re Missing a Key Driver of Teen Anxiety ": A culture of obsessive student achievement and long schoolwork hours can make kids depressed.

20 Years From Now...

We all know standardized tests aren't good for kids. We know they don't work as a way to boost academic achievement.  We know tying them to funding was (and is) a bad idea.

We know they do not work for all the reasons they were rolled out in the first place.

But, here we are, still giving them every single year in most states and public schools.

The universities and colleges have finally started saying, "We don't care about that one test". The workplaces have already said "they don't matter".

20 years from now we'll look back and say, "I can't believe we were doing that to our kids."

Probably sooner. Maybe next year, or at least the next decade.

Don't Blame The Administration or Teachers

Our administrators and teachers are doing the best they can put into an incredibly challenging environment.

Because of the policies in place at a national and state level, many of our schools are forced to focus on the results of these standardized tests.

Ask the administrators,  they know it's not in the best interest of kids, and have seen firsthand how it can impact their staff. 

Ask the teachers, they want to do creative and engaging work with their students, but don't often have time or resources to bring that to life in their classrooms.

Ask the students and parents, both know this is not working.

If you are a parent right now, have empathy for those in education that are working their hearts out to support the whole child, their learning and development, in the midst of our current environment.

If you are a teacher or administrator, have empathy for those parents and students who are struggling with the game of school and all that is involved.

If you are not in education, help those that are by giving grace to the profession and speaking up when and were you can about the policies in place that force our schools to focus so much on these standardized assessments.

Grace and empathy. It's needed right now. For all of us who have kids, work and teach kids, and supporting kids in schools.

And to all of those educators out there fighting the good fight and working to provide engaging, rich, and relevant learning experiences for our students (when you do not have to because it is not being measured in any way) --- THANK YOU!