Standardized Testing

By: Beisenbay Mukhanov

Although standardized tests have been using in American education system for more than 150 years, they became mandatory tests after George W. Bush on January 8^th, 2002 signed the No Child Left Behind Act. However, the aforementioned way to evaluate student knowledge and teaching quality was always, and is, controversial issue. The following essay is the brief summary of an article written by Valerie Straus, the opponent of the usage of the foregoing type of tests for education assessment, and published in Washington Post on April 15^th, 2011.

In the reading passage titled “The Myth of Standardized Testing” the author calls readers to question whether the claims of the proponents of the tests in question are true. For example, such assertions as that high student test scores show high student knowledge and teaching quality, a standardized test score reflects a student leaning better than any other evaluations, or that the high importance of standardized test scores encourages students and teachers to work harder and improve their performances. The author maintains that all these statements are actually myths which were created to endorse current school reform relying on standardized test assessments, and in which many people believe. To support her argument, the writer cites on a new book called, “The Myths of Standardized Tests: Why They Don’t Tell You What You Think They Do,” by Phillip Harris, Bruce M. Smith and Joan Harris. When the editorial was writing, Congress was considering changes in the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act. Therefore, Valerie Straus believed that points drawn in the book were especially essential at that time.

According to Ms. Straus, the aforesaid book explains why standardized tests are not the full and high objective evaluation of student achievement and education system, and why these tests encourage students to become “superficial thinkers”, and so forth. In addition, the book explores the influences of high stakes to standardized tests on school system. As an illustration, the foregoing tests cannot measure many educational achievements such as “creativity, critical thinking, resilience, motivation, persistence, curiosity, endurance, reliability, enthusiasm, empathy, self-awareness, self-discipline, leadership, civic-mindedness, courage, compassion, resourcefulness, sense of beauty, sense of wonder, honesty, and integrity”, instead the teaching focused on test preparing does not leave enough time to learn these important and desired by many parents student abilities. Moreover, examinations of students of different ages show “a statistical association between students with high scores on standardized tests and relatively shallow thinking” because these students were mostly studied only how to deal with the tests that means “to seek the quick, easy and obvious answer”.

In conclusion, the editorial’s author asserts that because a new education proposal of President Obama’s administration to achieve by 2020 the situation when all students will be “college and career ready” is still based on annual test assessments, it would not lead to education progresses.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-myths-of-standardized-testing/2011/04/14/AFNxTggD_blog.html