The Role of Standardized Testing

Race to the Top (RTTT) Funding Fuels Accelerating Testing Frenzy

Teachers and students can expect to face increased standardized testing as the state hastens to meet the twice-yearly RTTT demands to establish beginning and after data-points of student benchmarks. If you think testing wasted a lot of class time in 2011, just wait until 2013 when the RTTT mandate tying standardized testing to every teacher in every subject area kicks in.

An addditional pressure is the strong possibility that the state will mandate that teacher evaluations be tied to twice-yearly testing in all subject areas.

This is a phenomena spreading across the nation. In March, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina rolled out 52(!) tests in its district. Incidentally, this increase doesn’t take care of all new requirements – this is only Phase I of their planned increase. And in New York City, the board is developing a dozen more tests. To adequately meet the demands of RTTT, all districts in Massachusetts will have to go down that same tortuous path.

Many of our former Democratic Party allies have joined in to chase the (RTTT) money at the expense of common sense. The money will dry up shortly, leaving bad policy in its wake. We cannot afford to give up our fight to restore some common sense to what have been mislabeled reforms.

What are the limits and pitfalls of standardized tests?

• Curriculum will be narrowed as schools are encouraged to have their teachers concentrate on what is tested. This narrows both the kind of teaching that goes on and the breadth of what is taught. It also reduces time for subjects that are not tested, like social studies and the arts.
• If school administrators and government make performance on one or another standardized test the key to promotion, graduation for students and for measuring teacher performance — what is called “high stakes” testing — systemic "cheating" may be encouraged.
• Standardized testing punishes and demoralizes students who face special challenges as well as the teachers who teach them. Requiring students who face special challenges to pass the same test as students who do not is unfair. This applies to many categories of Special Ed students as well as students who are English Language Learners. Even with accommodations, many SPED and ELL students will suffer. 
• Making performance on a standardized test like MCAS  a condition of promotion or graduation can lead to large increases in the student dropout rate. Some school systems  boast “improvement” in test scores which is, sadly,  based on the exodus of the lowest performing students. It was found, for example, that the dramatic gains that Texas made in the late 1990s were a direct result of the soaring dropout rate. And right here in Massachusetts, the MATCH Charter School has been accused of the same a few years ago when it sent seniors whose graduation was in doubt back to the Boston Public Schools in late spring of their graduation year. Some educators believe that as the focus of a student's day narrows to focus on remedial work to prepare them to pass a high stakes test, students who are already at risk find the school experience so restrictive and onerous that it encourages them to drop out.
• Performance on a standardized test is not the only — or necessarily the best – way to measure what a student knows in a given subject area. While the school departments keep up the deafening drumbeat demanding that teachers and schools bring up their students’ scores on standardized tests,  they continue to give lip service to the need for inspired, creative teaching to prepare students for higher order thinking central to preparing our students for success in the 21st century. The importance of multiple alternative assessments, including student folders and portfolios, has been lost.

We do not want to see our schools reduced to test preparation centers. Unfortunately, the current focus on making standardized test results the main basis for evaluating students, teachers, schools and school districts threatens to do exactly that.