THE COMPLETE LIST OF PROBLEMS WITH HIGH-STAKES STANDARDIZED TESTS

THE COMPLETE LIST OF PROBLEMS WITH HIGH-STAKES STANDARDIZED TESTS
Washington Post "The Answer Sheet" Column -- November 1, 2011
Guest Blog By Marion Brady

In 1949, I was a self-employed trucker, buying and hauling timber for 
shoring up the roofs of coal mines in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

A very long United Mine Workers strike put me out of the trucking 
business. Not having exhausted all the GI Bill benefits due me from a 
stint in the U.S. Navy, I went back to college, jumped through the 
necessary certification hoops, and started teaching in 1952 at the high 
school level.

A few days ago, I went to a reunion of the surviving members of a class 
that picked up their diplomas 50 years ago, in 1961. They were a smart 
bunch of kids. The work of a couple of them would be familiar to 
millions of Americans.

Not surprisingly, a few became teachers. Without exception, those who 
talked to me at the reunion had no regrets. But also without exception, 
none of them would now encourage anyone to enter the field. Reason 
Number One: Standardized, machine-scored, high-stakes tests.

If that comes as a surprise, credit corporate America's successful 
promotion of the idea that test scores say something important. 
Opposition to the present orgy of testing is now wrongly interpreted as 
unwillingness to be held accountable.

For those who buy that fiction, a list of some of the real reasons for 
educator opposition may be helpful.

Teachers (at least the ones the public should hope their taxes are 
supporting) oppose the tests because they focus so narrowly on reading 
and math that the young are learning to hate reading, math, and school; 
because they measure only "low level" thinking processes; because they 
put the wrong people --- test manufacturers --- in charge of American 
education; because they allow pass-fail rates to be manipulated by 
officials for political purposes; because test items simplify and 
trivialize learning.

Teachers oppose the tests because they provide minimal to no useful 
feedback; are keyed to a deeply flawed curriculum adopted in 1893; lead 
to neglect of physical conditioning, music, art, and other, non-verbal 
ways of learning; unfairly advantage those who can afford test prep; 
hide problems created by margin-of-error computations in scoring; 
penalize test-takers who think in non-standard ways.

Teachers oppose the tests because they radically limit their ability to 
adapt to learner differences; encourage use of threats, bribes, and 
other extrinsic motivators; wrongly assume that what the young will need 
to know in the future is already known; emphasize minimum achievement to 
the neglect of maximum performance; create unreasonable pressures to cheat.

Teachers oppose the tests because they reduce teacher creativity and the 
appeal of teaching as a profession; are culturally biased; have no 
"success in life" predictive power; lead to the neglect of the best and 
worst students as resources are channeled to lift marginal kids above 
pass-fail "cut lines;" are open to massive scoring errors with 
life-changing consequences.

Teachers oppose the tests because they're at odds with deep-seated 
American values about individual differences and worth; undermine a 
fundamental democratic principle that those closest to and therefore 
most knowledgeable about problems are best positioned to deal with them; 
dump major public money into corporate coffers instead of classrooms.

I, a retired teacher beyond the reach of today's "reformers," oppose the 
tests for those reasons, and for the psychological damage they do to 
kids not yet able to cope. But my particular, personal beef is that the 
tests (and the Common Core State Standards on which they're based) are 
blocking policymaker consideration of what I believe to be the most 
promising educational innovation in the last century --- the use of 
general systems theory as it developed during World War II as a tool for 
reshaping and radically simplifying the "core curriculum."

If you think that even a couple of those 25 reasons why educators oppose 
standardized tests are valid, consider getting behind what ought to be 
an option for every child's parent or guardian --- the right to say, 
without being pressured or penalized by state or local authority, "Do 
not subject my child to any test that doesn't provide useful, same-day 
or next-day information about performance."