1. Mandated exams take away from limited teaching time.
Don’t just count the time required to actually take the exams, include the time to prepare students for the logistics, endless faculty meetings, time to take practice exams. SAT and ACT testing takes place on Saturdays…so why not FCAT (Florida’s Big Test) testing, too?
2. The Tests do not provide the intended measure.
What each test measures is how well a student took that particular test. Period. Claims that the exams measure reading ability, math mastery or science proficiency are all disputed.
Here in Florida, we have a huge immigrant population who speak English as a second language. Since the government must acronymically label everyone, these students are referred to as ESOL – English Speakers of Other Languages.
What’s the problem? These students must take their exams in English, not in their native language. Thus, their exam grades reflect a combination of their English Mastery and the subject matter. Imagine having to take a Science test in French. They can’t win. If I had to take a reading test but in Spanish, they’d say I was illiterate, too!
3. Exams are skewed by culture.
The standards, questions and priorities are all set by primarily middle-class white people. They assume a certain set of background knowledge that is common among middle-class white folk, and since the impoverished, minorities and immigrants have a different background, they are penalized.
4. High-performing schools are penalized.
An ‘A’ rated school will have a tough time showing any progress or improvement. They may have the ‘A’ but the law of diminishing returns increases the difficulty and expense in terms of resources to push scores even higher.
5. Poor schools are penalized.
If we are going to make an apples-to-apples comparison, we can’t ignore the impact of having the right, and enough, tools for the job. If there are not enough teachers, text books, classrooms, or computers at a particular school, learning achievements will naturally falter when stood side-by-side with an affluent school that has their own T.V. studio. That problem is doubly compounded when you consider that students at those poor schools are poor themselves and thus face the socioeconomic disadvantages that come with that dilemma.
6. “Improvements” are baloney!
How can you tell if a school improved? Compare this year’s score with last year’s, right?
WRONG!
The students who took the exam last year are not the same students who take it this year. They are different people. It’s an entirely new student body! Think how this might apply to real life. At work your boss sends group 1 to a leadership seminar, then he sends group 2 to the seminar. Everyone then takes a quiz on the material covered. Group 2 scores higher…the seminar must have improved!
There is–maybe–a way around this: the growth model. Under the growth model, reported by the NY Times, schools are evaluated at least in part by how individual students progress on exams. So little Susie is no longer compared to Johnnie, who is a year behind her. Instead Susie as a fourth grader is compared to Susie as a 7th grader. This makes more sense, but still won’t save us.
7. Exams ignore student effort.
This won’t be popular, but let me be honest for a moment: some kids fail because they don’t make (enough of) an effort. You can’t teach the unwilling. Why they are unwilling is important yes, but is a completely separate issue from school/teacher efficacy. Again, poor students are prone to find school useless.
There are students with Christmas tree attendance, who drop out to sell fruit and run cock-fights, who have to miss two weeks to watch their siblings while their parent is gone, who live with a distant cousin because mom and dad are stuck back in Haiti. They can’t make enough of an effort. They’re just trying to live. But standardized tests insist on cramming them into the middle-class white mold in which they so obviously do not fit.
8. Testing decisions are made by unqualified bureaucrats.
We’re talking about government agencies from the White House, Department of Education, State Government, School Districts, Administrations and advisory boards and committees. The government is the body which cannot deliver your mail on time and buys $800 hammers, remember? Why would we trust that they can deliver high-quality education?
Elected officials and appointed officials have their own agendas. Academics have their own agendas. Teachers have their own agendas. Yet the more contact, training and experience with students one has, the less influence one has on the big decisions. This guarantees that education is used for political gain, with education taking a back seat.
These people decide when, how, who, what, and where testing takes place. They decide what is on and off the test. They call the shots, and most have little or no experience actually teaching.
9. Testing ignores parental involvement.
Along with hundreds of additional factors that impact student performance, parental involvement is completely ignored. On one end of the spectrum are the parents who are in regular contact with teachers, who hire private tutors, who help with homework and maintain a great learning environment at home. At the other end is an unrelated guardian who demands that the student drop out and get a job so they can help pay the bills. That has a real impact, as do all the intermediary positions, yet are totally ignored.
I’m sure you can come up with dozens of flaws I missed. But all hope is not lost! Next time I’ll be writing:
Why Standardized Testing Is So Desperately Needed!
Good luck!
Allen Dobkin
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