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Lots of us are aware of the amount of time and student effort going into testing at state and national levels.  It certainly would be pleasing to see evident from high quality research studies showing that this testing of students is good for students, teachers, parents, our school systems, our states, and our nation.

Unfortunately …

If you are bothered by this over-emphasis on testing, you will enjoy the following blog entry:

Palmer, Erik (4/8/2011). Testing 1 2 3. ASCD edge. Retrieved 4/11/2011 from http://edge.ascd.org/_Testing-1-2-3/blog/3446034/127586.html.

Quoting from the document:

Adams 12 School District just cut $30 million from its budget next year.  They will fire 135 teachers bringing class sizes from 22 to 30 or so in the lower elementary grades.  How do you predict that will affect teacher effectiveness and teacher morale?  All middle school athletics will be cut.  How does that help the childhood obesity problem?  Fees will be increased for textbooks and buses.  How will that help the next bond election?  And Adams 12 is just one little district in Colorado.  I am afraid to call my teacher friend in Los Angeles because I suspect her story is much worse.  “Circling the drain” is a phrase she used when I last talked to her.

Notice what was not cut.  Testing.  Millions and millions and millions are spent testing kids and no one stands up to loudly shout, “STOP!”  Here is what we know: after many years of testing, nothing has changed.  Cottonwood Elementary, a rich, white school, has a 14 year history of 88% proficient or advanced and that number only goes up or down a point or two from one year to the next.  (Shocking truth #1 no one wants to admit: kids are different.  It is not the case that all kids can be advanced at math, writing, or anything.)  Village East Elementary, a poorer school with a diverse population, has a long history of 55% proficient or advanced.  (Shocking truth #2: every year one aberrant school is held up as an example that money and race are not important, but if you tell me the average income of the community and the percent of minorities in the school, I can tell you with 99% accuracy the school’s rating.)  So after 14 years of testing, nothing has changed.  It didn’t work.  It reports what we already know.  I get it.  Stop already. [Bold added for emphasis.]

What’s Wrong With This Situation?

I my opinion, the basic issue is what is being learned through the testing that has the following two characteristics:

1. We make effective use of the information to improve the education of students.
2. Obtaining the information through the current testing system and making use of the information obtained is a more cost effective way of improving education that other approaches we currently know about.

In terms of #1, we know the benefits of individualization in education. Think in terms of every test a student takes —whether teacher, district, state, or national—as formative evaluation that will lead to helping the each individual student who is being tested, as well as the teachers and parents of each individual student who is being tested.

As an example of #2, suppose that a Federal or State government, or an individual school district, is going to make a decision on allocating funds to improve education. The information needed to make this decision can come from a carefully randomized and stratified assessment of a small percentage of all students. Of course, the decision also needs to take into consideration carefully done research on “what works.” The overall process is to make a decision on what needs to be accomplished and what will accomplish it.

At the current time, the type of high stakes testing being done is driving curriculum content and instructional processes in a way designed to improve test scores. Somehow or other a great many people have “bought into” the idea that good test scores are by far the most important goal in education. However, I think most of understand that a good education is far more than good test scores.

From time to time I wonder what would happen if a great many students would say:

I will not routinely agree to take (so-called "high stakes”) tests and my parents strongly back me in this decision. I will only take such test if it is quite clear to me that doing so will help to improve the education I am currently engaged in and/or will directly benefit me in achieving my future educational goals.