Editorial: How important are standardized tests?
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The U.S. Department of Education and individual states use test scores in an attempt to quantify the unquantifiable. They try to take the A’s and B’s and quadratic equations and Civil War battles and conjugated verbs and mash them together to determine how students are learning.
First proposed in the 19th century, standardized testing took hold in the early 20th century, part of the same fervor for uniformity and measurement that brought us intelligence testing and military aptitude tests. What started with college testing became more. By 1922, experts began to see problems with measuring learning like this.
That was long before assertions arose that schools were demanding teaching how to pass the tests more than teaching information for education’s sake. Long before No Child Left Behind and the demand that states hold schools to a level of “adequate yearly progress” that doesn’t make allowances for the capabilities of this year’s seventh graders versus last year’s.
There are reasons to use standardized tests, but those are about measuring a kid against a kid’s own numbers. But there are times that doesn’t work, either. We know test scores can be affected by inadequate sleep, hunger, illness and by individual issues like ADHD.
Schools address these proactively by pushing parents to make sure kids are well rested. Many schools serve free breakfasts on test days. Kids with special needs can have testing accommodations like quiet rooms or additional time.
There should have been accommodations like that for every kid in 2021 — like maybe not having the test at all.
The state Department of Education on Friday announced the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment results. Students in third through eighth grades showed marked drops in math and language arts. Keystone exam results for high school students were more mixed, but that is because so few took the tests.
“I think at a state level, on a broad level, it’s hard for us to draw any kind of conclusions, based on all the metrics that changed,” said Sherri Smith, deputy secretary for elementary and secondary education.
The tests weren’t given in 2020 because Pennsylvania schools were in lockdown. In 2021, many kids still were going to school online, or sometimes in school and sometimes not, or behind a mask while people around them fought about whether the coronavirus pandemic was still going on.
It was not the kind of thing that a good night’s sleep and a waffle was going to fix. Quiet rooms and more time for the testing wouldn’t cut it. The accommodations should have been making the test as low-pressure as possible. The number of parents who opted out — participation fell to about 71% — indicate that many families just didn’t feel comfortable with them.
Instead of putting more exam pressure on students and teachers regarding the learning losses seen in the wake of the pandemic, the state and federal governments should ask themselves one question: Is the best way to cure that loss through testing or teaching?