What\'s Wrong and Right About High-Stakes Standardized Testing

Standardized testing has been rummaging around academic circles in America for close to a century ("Americans Instrumental"), but what has garnered the most controversy is the mandated nationwide testing under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002 (Hudson 10-15). The intent of NCLB is to pressure underperforming schools to meet basic educational standards, thereby reducing racial and socioeconomic disparities that have existed within the public education system since it was first established. There are, however, many critics of this approach. To better understand standardized testing, along with its benefits and controversies, this essay will provide an overview of the use of standardized testing within U.S. schools.

History

James Bryant Conant as President of Harvard College in 1933 helped establish the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), with the help of his assistant Henry Chauncey and the Princeton psychology professor Carl Brigham ("Americans Instrumental"). The SAT would be used to help evaluate the academic potential of scholarship candidates with modest economic backgrounds. These efforts eventually led to the establishment of the not-for-profit Educational Testing Service in 1948, with Conant as Chairman of the Board. Today, prospective college students can choose between the SAT and ACT, although high school students may also be faced with taking preparatory college entrance examinations prior to their senior year (von Kampen).

In 1992 the Texas legislature passed educational reforms that would hold teachers accountable for student academic performance, the first of its kind in the nation and the precursor for NCLB (Blakeslee). Before NCLB was enacted, most high school students were expected to complete a national academic achievement test. A day would be set aside for students to take these tests once a year, but no real consequences were incurred by either students or schools. The purpose was to evaluate how students were doing compared to all other high schools students nationally. The Texas educational reforms and the NCLB, however, ushered in a new era in standardized testing, one that imposed penalties on teachers and schools if the test scores were below the mean. Some states also instituted mandatory exit examinations for high school seniors and any student failing to pass the exam will not receive a diploma (Hudson 39).

Advantages

Standardized testing provides a valuable public service by helping to identify poorly performing students and teachers (Hudson 38). Once identified, remedial actions can be undertaken to try and help the student or teacher meet expected performance standards. Standardized testing would also help prevent the warehousing of students until they graduate and identify those students who have successfully hid their academic deficiencies. According to proponents, standardized tests help level the playing field for minority and other disadvantaged students, because academic performance is evaluated for all students using the same tests.

Disadvantages

The critics of standardized testing are quite numerous, but there are a few consistent central arguments. Ethnic minority and non-English speaking children are at a disadvantage because most standardized tests are designed for White students born and raised in the United States (Hudson 39-40). Within the State of Texas, the passage of high-stakes education reforms helped create a $1.7 billion student assessment industry dominated by a small number of private corporations (Blakeslee). In addition, the unprecedented successes reported by the Houston School System, successes which helped justify NCLB, have since come under allegations of corruption. On a national level, NCLB has, according to some critics, violated states rights by imposing national educational standards on local schools (Hudson 13-14). Core curriculums also suffer because a growing percentage of class time is devoted to 'teaching to the test.'

Preparing Students for Testing

To succeed in meeting expected scores on standardized tests the totality of the educational environment becomes important. An analysis of an elementary school consistently scoring high in reading and writing revealed motivated administrators, parents, and teachers, a strong emphasis on teacher professional development, plenty of support staff, and the delegation of writing and reading curriculum development to the most qualified teachers (Pressley, Mohan, Raphael, and Fingeret 225). Rather than dread the test scores, teachers used them to identify the students that needed more attention. Even though this particular elementary school served a community of minority, low-income families, the incoming students were almost universally well-prepared for the first grade curriculum. Apparently, the content of preschool curriculums and parental motivations are critical to adequately preparing first graders for the material that will be taught. When most students in an entering class are able to begin learning at a grade-appropriate level right away, teachers can spend a greater amount of time focusing on the few students who were not as well-prepared.