The Role of Standardized Testing in Schools

Is standardized testing a necessity in schools in the U.S.? What is the purpose of standardized testing? Are the current standardized tests being used in schools fulfilling the purpose they were created with?

According to Mark D’Alessio, standardized tests provide a way for checking progress and measuring growth. Two things are worth noting here. The first is that D’Alessio is not an educator, but I do agree with his stance. The second is that this can refer to much broader groups than just individuals. We can certainly use the tests to monitor student growth in tested areas, but I find that the real value of standardized tests is as a way to monitor school’s, district’s, and state’s growth. As educators, we need to be held accountable for doing our job, and as of now I see standardized tests as the best way to do that at the state and national level.

Maddie Abbot wrote an an article called “The case for (healthy) standardized testing” which outlines several major issues with educational achievement in the United States. These include adult illiteracy, failing to teach students, and grammar problems. The assumption being that once we identify these issues, we can then work to fix these issues at the national or even state level. In my eyes, that should be the central role of these tests. We can find these systemic issues and fix them, and then once we have done that, we will be able to show off our improved scores that ideally would mean we have a better prepared labor force to send out into the world. Unfortunately, the way the scores are used currently is more focused on finger pointing and used for awarding funding. A shift in the focus of these tests, or rather the cumulative data produced by the test, could lead to some real effective educational changes.

There are several issues with standardized tests currently. Alexandra Pannoni wrote an article on ACT test results. She talks about the issues that are keeping ACT results from going up. This is interesting me because the ACT is really the only standardized test that I interact with in the year. As an elective teacher I don’t have a standard test for my classes, but I do help proctor the ACT to juniors now that it is the standard test used for juniors in Nebraska. Pannoni says that many of the students that take the college readiness test have no intention of going to college, which obviously limits their motivation, but is also innately unfair. If a student is not intending to go to college, they shouldn’t be compared to students who are preparing to go to college in a college readiness test. I believe in the intent of standardized tests, but this example does illustrate that it is difficult to have such a broad test that does evaluate students based on the actual situation they are in.