Senators Lamar Alexander and Tim Scott, both Republicans, are rewriting No Child Left Behind, the signature legislation of President George W. Bush (Troyan, 2015). NCLB was doomed to fail (Wallis, 2008), and it did not disappoint. All students could never record an average or better score in reading and math, a statistical impossibility. The Center for Education Policy (2011) concluded that in 2011, approximately 50% of U.S. public scho
ols failed to achieve the adequate yearly progress (AYP) the law required.
Alexander are Scott are ready to spend tens of billions more of taxpayers’ dollars in the second edition. The most unwelcome news, however, is the approval by the House of Representatives to continue to fund nationwide school testing. Currently, approximately $2 billion is spend annually for school testing (Resmovits, 2012). Even more will be spent testing the new Common Core Standards.
Why is it that political pollsters can interview 1,500 voters and accurately predict the outcome of a presidential election within a few percentage points—but it requires administering millions of reading and math tests to measure student performance in the nation’s public schools? Not only is the scope of national and state school testing unnecessary, it is needless and senseless.
Currently, 500+ educational researchers have signed an open letter and petition to Congress and the Obama administration opposing the continued use of school tests—which has widened cultural and racial gaps and inequities in academic achievement. And despite spending millions of dollars on testing for decades, scores in reading and math tests have remained virtually unchanged, as I previously noted (Glenn, 2014),
Test scores in reading and math in U.S. public schools have remained stable for years. Behold the reading scores of fourth and eighth graders on the National Test of Educational Progress since 1992:
In fact, the best schools are test-free zones. They focus on teaching instead of testing. Finland, for example, a nation internationally recognized for the quality of its schools, instituted long-range educational policies nearly 50 years ago (Maes, 2012). Each Finnish school is autonomous in its curricula and instruction. Education in Finland focuses on learning in a safe classroom environment that emphasizes creativity and risk-taking instead of test scores and hog-tying teachers to tests and meaningless standards. The result: Unlike in the United Sates, schools and teachers are trusted and respected. Except for one national examination, Finland’s teachers assess student progress, not with mandated federal and state tests or competitive grades, but with specific teacher feedback, a practice John Hattie (2009) empirically identified as paramount in increasing student achievement.
Few school tests have ever provided useful information or definitive diagnostic data for planning instruction that ensures students improve in a particular subject. Since the passage of NCLB in 2002, teachers have reserved too many hours on too many school days to teach the content of state tests—as they now prepare to ensure students score well on Common Core Standards. Test scores identify only whether students in a particular grade or class or students in a particular school score better on a particular test than students in some other grade, class, or school. This same information can be collected by administering the same tests to a random sample of students in randomly selected schools—just as pollsters select samples and accurately predict election outcomes.
If you are concerned about the continuing, increasing, and unnecessary costs to administer school tests, which now include testing the mastery of Common Core Standards in many states, including Anaheim public schools, call or write your state and federal representatives and tell them—and consider adding your name to the petition (scroll to bottom). As far as Common Core Standards and their testing is concerned, for the sake of students, teachers, and parents, hope that Common Core has a shorter life than the baseball career of Eddie Gaedel.
Another great blog, Hugh. Thanks again for a breath of fresh air.
There is an obsession by our lawmakers with data and testing as though continually measuring yourself will make you taller. I’d love to see an obsession with fixing the real problems that plague our schools: students living in poverty and parents barely able to keep a roof over their heads, overcrowded classrooms with plenty of money for computers and tests and no money ever for less than 35 kids in a cramped room and mandate after mandate with no money to support them. Thank you for telling the truth, these tests waste money that could be used on the things that matter.
John Hattie identified these potential benefits of testing:
• For teachers to find out which students understood the lesson and which students did not.
• Inform teachers which concepts were taught effectively and which were not.
• Identify gaps in students’ understanding and needed additional instruction.
• Inform teachers and students about progress in understanding a concept or skill.
None of these potential benefits of testing is an important reason for their use in our nation’s public schools.
Great article. I hope the public starts becoming more aware of how devastating these standardized tests can be on both students and teachers. Children don’t develop atbthe same rate and that needs to be considered when creating age appropriate standards and expectations.
I hope Gloria Romero and her minions who can’t seem to stop talking about 2013 test results will read this and get a clue.
With regard to the potential benefits of testing…those work when teachers are providing immediate feedback. A change in instruction or filling a gap needs to happen right away…it does no good at all to find out how a student did on a standardized test a year later.
Thank you for this, Dr. G. Perhaps if we all work together we can make a difference.