Standardized Testing Conflicting Viewpoints

Conflicting Viewpoints Essay: Standardized Testing

Standardized testing has become increasingly common throughout the American educational system. It has become a critical part of national and state education law and policy as a way of ensuring greater accountability for American schools. But merely because a policy is more popular does not necessarily mean that it is doing what it purports to do. Since the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) mandated standardized assessment on the individual and school level, serious questions have been raised regarding such tests’ validity and their ability to render schools truly accountable for the education their students receive.

Supporting My Position (Against Standardized Testing)

Perhaps the most damning indictment against standardized testing was provided by a nonpartisan study by the Brookings Institution, which found annual standardized testing by schools to be highly unreliable in the data they yielded (“Standardized Testing,” 2018). An estimated 50-80% of year-to-year test score improvements were more caused by differences in the test content, rather than real measures of student ability and learning (“Standardized Testing,” 2018). One of the key criteria for any standardized test is reliability, or the ability to produce similar results when tested upon the same population for the same purpose. Tests are expensive to administer and design, yet even the considerable resources devoted to producing such tests are questionable in their ability to do what they claim to do; moreover, different states have different assessment methods, further questioning the ability of tests to yield useful, reliable data.

Secondly, in addition to lacking demonstrable reliability, there is also evidence that standardized tests lack validity due to inherent biases. Certain members of historically discriminated-against groups such as African-Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans have under-performed on standardized tests, which can reinforce societal biases as well as impact the self-esteem of students. But the fault may be in the design of the test. Standardized tests, despite purporting to measure student ability versus pure, factual knowledge, often contain knowledge more likely to be possessed by students from more affluent areas. For example, the NAEP (the National Assessment of Educational Progress) found that changing the weight of algebra versus geometry on standardized tests altered the gap between Black and white students (“Standardized Testing,” 2018). Vocabulary used on the testing may also be more familiar to affluent students, thus skewing results.

Finally, there is the fact that testing changes the content of the classroom. When the stakes are high for testing, teachers and schools have an undeniable incentive to teach so students perform well on tests. Creative assignments, independent thinking, and teacher discretion are inevitably deemphasized. According to Center on Education Policy reported that since 2001, 44% of school districts have reduced time on subjects not specifically tested on standardized assessments such as science, social studies and the arts (“Standardized Testing,” 2018).

Believing Questions

However, in taking the contrary viewpoint. I can see some validity to the argument that there must be some objective standard by which to measure student achievement, otherwise students from historically discriminated-against groups may not receive the same education as students in higher-achieving districts. Teaching to the test does not necessarily mean that teachers need to abandon creative techniques. Also, even if it is a struggle to create reliable and valid tests that does not necessarily mean that the practice must be entirely abandoned.

Biases

From my own perspective, I know I am biased against standardized tests because of personal, anecdotal experience (arguing from personal experience as a bias). This is due to the high levels of stress which accompany taking them and the fact that I do not believe that such tests adequately measure my own level of knowledge and achievement. I know many very intelligent and accomplished people who did not get top scores on their standardized tests. I have a confirmation bias, or a tendency to interpret data based upon my personal belief structures. There is a great deal of contradictory information online about the supposed validity or reliability of standardized testing and I have a natural tendency to wish to believe studies that confirm rather than contradict those biases.