Student California Teachers Association

Standardized testing, as it currently exists, negatively affects the entire educational system at all levels, from student to teacher, from administrator to district, from family to public perception. Today, all fifty states mandate standardized testing at least once in elementary school, and President Bush recently signed a bill requiring testing annually in third through eighth grade. While advocates proclaim testing ensures accountability of teachers and administrators and shows whether or not students are actually learning, these arguments are easily disputed, and there are even more compelling reasons why standardized testing in its current form should be abolished.

First, most types of standardized testing focus exclusively on a narrow range of specific knowledge. Such tests often reward students for memorizing facts, rather than requiring more complex thinking strategies and problem-solving techniques. Health, music, theatre/drama, art, after school sports, and physical education programs in most schools are being dropped or minimized because they are not on the tests; individual teachers and districts feel pressure to improve test scores, not teach "right-brain" activities such as visual arts, nor "useful real-world" information such as health, for example. Standardized tests in California do not match the state curriculum frameworks in all subjects. But, since the schoolís federal funding depends on test scores, and since the most important testing areas are mathematics and language arts, subjects like science, social science, history, civics, second languages, and vocational skills (ex. typing, industrial arts, computer science) are often viewed as less important, especially at the elementary level. This trend and mounting pressure for improved scores has forced many teachers to "teach to the test," leaving little time to devote to teaching other areas and making more well-rounded, responsible citizens. Because they feel the push to get kids to score higher on the tests, teachersí creativity is stifled and their ability to create a more appropriate curriculum for their particular studentsí needs is quashed. The results may be a limited curriculum focused primarily on test subjects, disgruntled teachers who are increasingly frustrated by the limitations imposed upon them and lack of funding for other subjects, and a growing body of students who are disinterested and unmotivated because most of the "fun" subjects and extracurricular activities have been eliminated. Students may even rebel in violence, develop anxiety disorders and stress-related illnesses (ex. ulcers), and/or learn to hate reading and math if that is all that they focus on during their first seven years in school. Eventually, society will have a much larger price to pay. Teachers who used to love to teach are dropping out of the profession, and as the students become adults with anxiety disorders, a hatred for reading and math, and only limited knowledge of history, science, health, civics, art, music, and other subjects, they will have a difficult time getting into college, finding good jobs, and surviving in the real world. In these ways, standardized testing is a disservice to students and teachers, as well as the society at large.

A second argument against the current system of standardized testing is the assertion that no standardized test will be "fair" to all of the various students who must take it. For example, most linguists agree that language is fluid and constantly changing. Students who speak certain dialects or who use vocabulary that is changing in meaning and context, function and form, will be punished on a standardized test for not picking the "correct" answer. If language is fluid and flexible, it is difficult to accurately test because of its constantly changing nature and the likelihood that there is no one "right" answer. Further, second language learners who may be very bright may still perform poorly on tests that require time limits, reading and writing in English, and specifically "American" knowledge (ex. saying "elevator" instead of lift, or giving reading passages that are biased or only understood in the context of having lived in the U.S. for a long period of time). On a group and an individual level, standardized tests discriminate against the very things that built this country and made it great -- creativity, diversity, and multiculturalism! Furthermore, for any particular child, if he/she did not have breakfast the morning of the test, is feeling sick, did not get enough sleep the night before, has parents in the middle of a divorce, or has other (even time-limited) psychosocial factors present, that childís performance on a standardized test on that one particular day will likely be affected. To utilize a simile, standardized testing is like taking only one snapshot of where the child may currently be in his/her learning; if the child blinks or squints or sneezes or has a pimple at that moment, he/she looks bad in that photo for a year or two until the next one is taken, and so does his/her teacher and school. Most teachers suggest more of a videotape approach, one where individual pupils are measured on their own progress throughout the school year. Portfolios and other alternative assessments are fairer methods of measuring individual progress and also can be used to assess level (ex. reading) for comparison with other students and/or accepted grade level standards. Such methods are likely to be more reliable from the perspective that they can be measured every day during the school year, rather than for a couple hours a year. Individualized assessments allow for diversity, various levels of ability and disability, and daily variations in a childís mood, sleep factors, nutrition, social situations, and so forth.

Standardized testing, in its current form, is also misunderstood by most people. And, it is often not used for its intended purpose. While testing is supposed to help teachers assess student needs, instead it is often used to penalize students, teachers, and entire districts for not scoring "high enough." Districts who are below the 50th percentile are seen as "bad schools," affecting everything from a neighborhoodís property values to studentsí self-esteem. However, if people better understood the definition of a bell curve, it would be recognized that by definition about 2/3 of schools fall within one standard deviation of the mean (the mean being the 50th percentile). If all schools improved at the same time, they would just have to remake a harder test. That is, if every student in the country taking the SAT-9, for example, got 100 % of the questions right, each studentís standardized score would be equal to the mean, so 100 % of the students scores would fall at the 50th percentile! Currently, it has been proposed that schools who do not "improve" from getting 100 % of the questions right may be penalized by losing federal funding! Perfection by all students may result in punishment; getting the equivalent of an A+ (100 % of the questions right) may be interpreted by students, teachers, parents, administrators, the media, and the society at large as getting an F because they do not understand that the 50th percentile only indicates an average score (not how many questions an individual got right or wrong on the test). On the individual level, if a student got 70 % of the questions right and so did the majority of students, he/she would be at the mean (50th percentile). The next year, the same student could answer 90 % of the questions on the test correctly; if the majority of others did the same (regardless of whether they got "smarter" or whether the test was "easier"), the student would still score at the 50th percentile. While his/her knowledge may have grown by 20 % or more, no improvement would be noted on a standardized test. These examples demonstrate not only how the testing is used to penalize students and districts, but also how ludicrous Mr. Bushís assertion is that all students should strive to be above the 50th percentile, which by definition is statistically impossible, even if every child tested got every question on the test correct! Parents may also punish children for "low scores." Penalties and misunderstandings make standardized testing a dangerous weapon to use against individual students, teachers, and districts.

It is extremely unlikely that we can ever develop a standardized test that is fluid like language; respectful of all individual differences and diversity; accommodating to possible multiple "right" answers, instead of a rigid one right answer system; accountable for differences in an individualís score because of circumstance on a certain day; focused on a broader range of knowledge in all subjects; statistically understandable to all involved; longer-range, less like a snapshot and more like a videotape; and, not penalizing to individual students, teachers, administrators, and districts. A standardized test that improves classroom instruction and assesses for that particular teacher is what is needed for his/her students is essential; the current system does not provide that information. Until such a test is developed, there are too many flaws with the current tests to responsibly continue to administer them.

Finally, standardized tests have sometimes been used to unfairly segregate students on individual and group levels; for example, some studies have shown ethnic minorities are unfairly sorted and tracked individually, while on a larger level the upper classes (mostly Caucasians) have simultaneously fled to "higher performing" schools in richer neighborhoods where funding is plentiful. For some, scores may "confirm" stereotypes, posing a potentially dangerous racial and ethnic hatred (ex. "You see, those dumb XXX people in that neighborhood are stupid; the test scores prove it!"). The resulting individual alienation and/or group discrimination may cause or contribute to violence in school and in the neighborhood. In summary, standardized testing in its current form should be eliminated because it is virtually useless to most students and teachers, and it has a much greater potential for doing more harm than good. Why not let the Hypocratic oath guide teachers? Letís first make sure we do no harm.

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