Introduction
Five decades ago, Seymour Sarason said that “we live in a test-conscious, test-giving culture in which the lives of people are in part determined by their test performance” (Segool et al. 489). The statement reflected growing scrutiny of schools for accountability through standardized testing. Several schools in Houston claimed that standardized testing helped them to realize remarkable results, which was commonly termed as the “Texas miracle” (Wang 394). This perception influenced the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act that spurred a dramatic increase in the prevalence and stakes of standardized testing for students in American schools. The Act presented “a sharp turn for many educators, as teachers were asked to embrace increased standardized testing, while state offices of education needed to develop new accountability measures for their schools” (Feldmann 3). However, the use of standardized tests as the primary method of evaluating the performance is not only hurting American schools but also contributing to severe educational and occupational outcomes for American students. This essay critically discusses several ways in which standardized tests are hurting American schools.
Harm towards Disadvantaged Students
Standardized testing is particularly detrimental to disadvantaged students. Aggressive public policies such as the NCLB have failed to achieve the main goal expected to do several decades ago – reduce the socioeconomic achievement gaps in US schools (Berliner 4). Students living in poverty generally perform below state or national standards on high-stakes tests (Berliner 4). The underperformance can be attributed to the myriad challenges the disadvantaged students face in their pursuit of education. Notably, students from low-income households often lack quality health and food, they are often exposed to domestic violence, they are often absent from school, and change schools at a higher rate compared to their privileged peers (Berliner 4). It would be logical to assert that these factors make it more difficult for these students to succeed in school and thus, clearly contribute to their underperformance particularly when compared to poor teaching quality.
Moreover, Morgan reiterates that using standardized testing hurt learners from low-income families more than ever before due to the recent sharp increase in the number of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds in the US compared to many other countries where the number is dropping (68). As a consequence, public schools that serve students from low-income areas have higher chances of adopting a form of instruction that emphasizes drilling and memorization, ultimately resulting in little learning (Morgan 67). Overall, proponents of standardized testing perceive all students, regardless of their income status, gender, race, and other demographics, to have equal learning abilities. Considering the plethora of difficulties students from low socioeconomic backgrounds face, standardized high-stakes tests do not provide a level field for assessing marginalized and privileged students.
Additionally, high-stakes test results lead to unfair academic and employment outcomes. Particularly, tests score results influence critical decisions such as federal funding, high school graduation, and employability (Rose 22). It should be understood that standardized tests may accurately predict students’ academic achievement, but not performance in a career after formal education. High-stakes scores systematically discriminate “poor” or “average” students because they do not capture many other types of intelligence these students may be gifted with (Morgan 70). For example, “average” students may become highly successful in their profession after formal schooling. Therefore, relying on standardized testing hurts students who are gifted with other abilities other than linguistic and mathematics abilities.
Inaccurate Assessment of Student’s Intelligences
High-stakes testing fails to provide a holistic measurement of students’ abilities. Morgan identifies that relying on this method of assessment harms learners because it provides narrow information about many types of intelligence and thus, cannot accurately measure a student’s potential for success (67). Standardized testing perceives intelligence as “a singular faculty that is brought to bear in any problem-solving situation” (Gardner & Walters 4). The system overemphasizes linguistic and mathematics intelligences and thus, deny teachers the chance to assess higher-order thinking abilities like critical analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and creativity (Morgan 67). Rose opines that by relying on test scores as the primary criteria for determining success, “we miss those considerable intellectual achievements that aren’t easily quantifiable” (23). This problem is compounded by the idea that some school districts inflate students’ test scores in order to avert punitive repercussions of low student test scores (Morgan 67). It is undoubted that such skewed information neither reflects the quality of their instructors nor capture the actual skills of their students.
Low-Quality Instruction and Learning
Standardized testing contributes to low-quality instruction in American schools. Widespread implementation of this method has turned the American education into a standards-based system that emphasizes passing exams rather than adequately preparing students to face the demands of the 21st century. NCLB has intensified scrutiny of public schools for accountability from the federal level (Feldmann 4). Consequently, many teachers face a lot of pressure to improve their students’ scores (Morgan 67). Public schools that fail to meet established performance standards may face heavy consequences such as financial sanction and even closure (Rose 22).
Extreme pressure to meet established standards can have serious consequences. Morgan argues that this extreme pressure forces teachers to implement inferior instruction that stresses drilling and memorization (67). Sanders found out that many teachers respond to the pressures of “raising the percent proficient by choosing to focus their instruction on students closest to meeting the proficiency standards” (2). Rose points out that this style of teaching creates very limited opportunities for disadvantaged students to “make progress and contributes to unscrupulous practices, such as lowering proficiency scores, holding students back to prevent them from taking tests, and even falsifying students’ scores” (Rose 20).
On the same note, Schlemmer asserts that the increased use of high-stakes testing continuously undermines the significance of the context in which teaching and learning take place (29). The scholar further points out that “cultural norms and social practices influence the activities in which students engage and shape the opportunities they have for learning such that their cognition and behavior cannot be separated from the social context in which they take place” (29). Gardner and Hatch describe the concept of intelligence as 'the capacity to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural settings' (4). In light of this definition, standardized testing results in a structured education that is less relevant the students and teachers’ culture and the community. This structured education fosters pedagogy “that is efficient, predictable, and detached from student and teacher interests” (Schlemmer 27). As a result, both students and educators perceive American schools to be less interesting and inspiring places. By failing to incorporate the social and cultural dimensions of learning and instruction, standardized testing produces students who are less socially and ethically responsible (Feldmann 5).
On top of that, Morgan stresses that standardized testing promotes inferior learning that strives to enhance student performance on tests through drilling and memorization. Although learners’ scores may improve, many students fail to develop high-level thinking skill (19). For example, high school students in Texas reported improved scores for reading through drills and practice but most of them could not apply what they had acquired to content other than that featured on the state test (Morgan 19). Morgan presents a case of a student who encountered severe difficulties (writing and math entrance exam) at college despite passing her high school graduation test on her first attempt. Sanders also hold that this approach to instruction may be a detriment to meeting “adequate yearly progress” in future grades. The scholar further notes that this strategy particularly hurt “students at the lower end of the achievement spectrum” as they may face challenged catching up with high performing peers, consequently falling further behind. This example clearly shows that standardized testing fails to adequately prepare students for college and their professional practice.
Besides that, high-stakes tests promote corruption and cheating. Pressure to meet federal standards influence many school administrators to resort to cheating. During her service as Chancellor of Washington D.C. schools, for example, Michelle Rhee oversaw the implementation of a system that linked test scores to bonuses and teacher evaluations (Morgan 69). Through this biased system, Rhee fired many instructors for poor performance. However, a sudden rise in test scores raised concerns over cheating after several cases of erasure marks revealed: “changes from wrong-to-right answers” (Morgan 69). Also, staff members may cheat by presenting questions to students prior to the actual exam, correcting students’ answers, and inflating students’ test scores. For example, an examination of a test used to assess schools in Texas discovered “tens of thousands” of cases of cheating without penalties (Morgan 70). Although cheating may appear a small issue, gross scandals can end in felony convictions. In 2013 for example, 35 school personnel in public schools in Atlanta were indicted for correcting wrong answers and manipulating students’ test scores. Besides that high-stakes testing breeds unhealthy competition among teachers which inhibits effective collaboration (Morgan 70). For example, schools that reward teachers based on their students’ performance on standardized tests create tension among instructors. Such unhealthy competition not only discourages effective collaboration among teachers but also encourages them to focus on increasing their students’ test scores in an attempt to outpace their colleagues (Jennings and Bearak 81). Such situations deny learners the opportunity to benefit from broader knowledge that would have been created through staff collaboration.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Theodore R. Sizer, University Professor Emeritus at Brown University, argued that “High schools exist not merely to subject the pupils to brute training... but to develop their powers of thought, of taste, and of judgment" (Feldmann 4). Standardized testing negates this thought-provoking statement. By determining the success of students and schools primarily by what they score on high-stakes tests, educators hurt disadvantaged students, provide skewed information about what students know and quality of teachers, foster unhealthy competition that breed cheating and corruption, promotes low-level instruction, and leads to mistreatment of teachers and students. All these consequences justify that standardized testing is detrimental to American schools. Therefore, policymakers should consider combining standardized testing with other forms of evaluation to accurately measure students’ potential for success.
Works Cited
Berliner, David C. "Are teachers responsible for low achievement by poor students?." The Education Digest 75.7 (2010): 4.
Feldmann, Doug. "Citizenship Education: Current Perspectives from Teachers in Three States." Educational Research Quarterly 30.4 (2007): 3-15.
Gardner, H., & Walters, J. (1993). A rounded version. Foundations of Cognitive Psychology, 761.
Jennings, Jennifer L., and Jonathan Marc Bearak. "“Teaching to the test” in the NCLB era: How test predictability affects our understanding of student performance." Educational Researcher 43.8 (2014): 381-389.
Morgan, Hani. "Relying on high-stakes standardized tests to evaluate schools and teachers: A bad idea." The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas 89.2 (2016): 67-72.
Rose, Mike. “School reform fails the test.” The American Scholar 84.1 (2015): 18–30.
Sanders, William L. "Beyond" No Child Left Behind"." (2003).
Schlemmer, Ross H. "Community arts:(Re) contextualizing the narrative of teaching and learning." Arts Education Policy Review 118.1 (2017): 27-36.
Segool, Natasha K., et al. "HEIGHTENED TEST ANXIETY AMONG YOUNG CHILDREN: ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ANXIOUS RESPONSES TO HIGH‐STAKES TESTING." Psychology in the Schools 50.5 (2013): 489-499.
Wang, Hongbo. "The Texas economic model, miracle or mirage? A spatial hedonic analysis." The Annals of Regional Science 56.2 (2016): 393-417.
