Standardized testing and the promise of progress (original) (raw)
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Effects of standardized testing on teachers and learning--Another look
1990
and Student Testing (CRESST) UCLA Graduate School of Education 1 Standardized testing has assumed a prominent role in recent efforts to improve the quality of education. National, state, and district tests, combined with minimum competency, special program, and special diploma evaluations, have resulted in a greatly expanded set of testing requirements for most schools. At a cost of millions, even billions, of dollars and at the expense of valuable student, teacher, and administrator time, testing advocates and many policymakers still view testing as a significant, positive, and costeffective tool in educational improvement.
Discovering the True Nature of Educational Assessment
2004
Testing and particularly standardized tests are increasingly identified as sources of a host of ills that afflict contemporary education. The ills have been widely catalogued and discussed (Kohn, 2000; Sacks, 1999). Testing and standardization are not, however, in themselves, the causes of these ills; to think so would be an error and a distraction, because the real problem is far deeper and more widespread. It lies in the noneducational uses of tests, an almost universal, unhealthy practice.
The Pedagogy of Standardized Testing: Introduction
Palgrave Macmillan, 2016
Standardized Testing and the Changing Form of US and Canadian Education Few activities are more riddled with metaphor than education. Learning is a gift, a search, a path, an adventure, a blossoming, and a light bulb turning on. To teach is to conduct, to garden, to act as tour guide and custodian of the future, and, of course, to love. Students training to be teachers are often asked to identify metaphors that represent their philosophy of education. Some examples from students in a recent Masters course I teach include teaching as farming, dancing, storytelling, rain, metamorphosis, and reproduction. While there are many who may find it hard not to roll their eyes at the sometimes cutesy and oversimplified representations of education, these metaphors, indeed the most stereo-typical of them all (learning as a journey, teaching as inspiration) reflect specific understandings of education that are embodied in twentieth-and twenty-first-century schools. New educators know much more about teaching and learning than their professional forebearers. For the most part, the past 50 years have seen students gain access to not only better information (more accurate and holistic content in our schools) but better teaching as well (more inclusive, student-centered, and pedagogically sound practice), thanks in large part to education research and increasingly comprehensive teacher training. It has been a century since the revolutionary work of philosopher John Dewey argued that schools should reflect the social, democratic, and interactive potential and nature of teaching and learning; and nearly a half century since Brazilian popular educator and theorist Paulo Freire warned against the banking model in education (wherein the teacher is the only knower in the room), suggesting instead that authentic education emerges from conversation rather than monologue, and that learning occurs most powerfully when linked to A. Kempf, The Pedagogy of Standardized Testing
Can You Hear Us? Voices Raised against Standardized Testing by Novice Teachers
Creative Education, 2013
The most common criticism of standardized testing is that teachers find themselves "teaching to the test" instead of teaching the various content and skill areas of the curriculum. In recent years, standardized tests have become the predominant tool used to determine a student's progress, to promote or retain a student at the current grade level, and to identify if a learning disability exists. The main problem with standardized tests is that they inhibit the kind of education that matters the most, preparing young people with "higher order thinking skills" to compete in a global economy. Does "teaching to the test", an integral part of standardized tests, really increase student capabilities and knowledge, or does it simply put more pressure on teachers and students? Teachers want their students to excel on their standardized tests for both their benefit, as well as the benefit of their students. High scores become even more important because the school district uses individual school test scores to evaluate each school. In many cases, school ratings are now linked to funding and teacher evaluation. Novice teachers are the next generation of educators who will be teaching school children. These enthusiastic, optimistic young professionals have a unique perspective that has not been tainted by the educational bureaucracy. In this paper some novice teachers who were presently teaching voiced their concerns and opinions against standardized tests.
In this essay I will be examining the origins of high stakes testing in the United States, its widespread use in the educational system, the rise of test driven “reforms” and the damage brought on by test overuse. Test-scores have not only become the central focus of economic and educational reforms, high stakes test scores are also being using as performance metrics requiring virtually all students and teachers to proficient levels, determining whether the schools are making “adequate yearly progress” and using these scores to impose severe sanctions on those who fail to meet the required standards. I will also be examining the impact of standardized high stakes testing on the education system and the resulting negative effects arising from its misuse: impeding student learning, demoralizing teachers, undermining schools and exacerbating racial and ethnic inequalities and social stratification. In order to gain an international perspective on the significance of standardized testing as a measure of students’ progress and development, I shall be comparing the testing cultures around the globe. Finally, I will propose a set of alternative methods of assessment and explain how they can be applied in place of standardized tests as a more effective and accurate assessment of student performance.
Tests as Standards of Achievement in Schools
1989
The questicn of whether tests can be both curriculum-neutral and effectivt means of monitoring and motivating educational practice is discussed. Educational reform and testing are intimately linked, as tests are wAely viewed as a means of educational improvement. Tests/assessments influence educator behavirx" by stimulating them to assure that their students perform well. Tests/assessments used for public accountability or program evaluation purposes affect the curriculum. A new vision of education-a thinking-oriented curriculum (TC) for all students-is considered, in which edu:ation focuses on higher-order abilities, problem solving and thinking, and the ability to go beyond the routine and exercise personal judgment. Current tests that are inimical to a TC are discussed. To assess the extent to which decomposition and decontextualization-two key assumptions underlying standardized testing-permeate today's achievement tests, reading comprehension, language, and mathematics test batteries that are widely used in educational assessment are analyzed. Standardized tests fare badly when judged against the criterion of assessing and promoting a TC, They embody a view of education that defines knowledge and skill as a collection of bits of information and they demand fast non-reflective replies. Alternative performance assessments for a TC, including open-ended writing examinations (essays) and portfolio assessments, help release educators from the pressure toward fractionated low-levP1 forms of learning that are rewarded by most current tests, and they also set positive standards for an educational system that strives to cultivate thinking. Tied to curriculum and designed to be taught to, performance assessments can be essential tools for raising authentic educational achievement. A 25-item list of references is included. (RLC)
Palgrave Macmillan, 2016
In 2004, leading testing expert Robert L. Brennan1 explained: “I failed to recognize that a testing revolution was underway in this country that was based on the nearly unchallenged belief (with almost no supporting evidence) that high-stakes testing can and will lead to improved education.”2 Despite such cautions from mainstream assessment and measurement scholars, the current frequency and use of standardized testing is unprecedented in US history. In Canada, despite significant variation across its provinces and territories, norm-referenced standardized testing (ST) has scarcely been as widely used as it is today. To be clear, testing is not the only important development underway in education. Despite a push against social foundations in education3 in some teacher preparation programs, teacher training is generally more comprehensive than it used to be. New teachers are better versed in supporting diverse students, they have access to a greater variety of instruction and assessment techniques and they have a deeper applied understanding of education research and technology than many of their predecessors. However, while testing is not the only driver of change, it is the most significant. Standardized testing is best understood as a technology, the nature and effects of which can be read a number of ways.
Teachers' assessments in a standards world
2011
Today most assessment schemes in education systems around the world are attempting to report in a more meaningful manner than simply grades or marks alone (Tognolini & Stanley, 2007). Increasingly assessment schemes are required to provide evidence that is credible to employers and end-users. At the heart of contemporary schemes is the reporting of student achievement in terms of a series of standards or verbal descriptions that indicate the characteristics of the learning, i.e. “what a pupil knows and can do”.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2016
In twenty-first-century schooling, standardized testing (ST) has as much to do with politics as education. In the United States, the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) may produce the largest and most complex web of ST in all of history, while simultaneously, parents in record numbers are pulling their children from the tests and public outcry has reached fever pitch across the country. In Canada, a much quieter push and pull is under way. Like other phenomena related to ST, the differences in resistance as well as political bolstering seem quantitatively (rather than qualitatively) different in Canada. The conversation about testing in Canada is a much smaller (and calmer) version of that in the United States. In Ontario, which is heavily invested in ST, teachers and a small but growing number of parents are pushing back with students opting out in small numbers. This appears, roughly, to correspond with less testing and with relatively less teaching to the test than in US contexts. While Ontario teachers primarily expressed concern with questions of the changing classroom and the changing job, many US teachers read the testing landscape with an eye toward politics as well, and many identify a hidden curriculum of testing as far as the profession.
The Effects of Standardized Testing on Teaching and Schools
Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 2005
How much influence does standardized testing exert on teaching and learning in upper elementary classrooms? Is there any difference between the impact of testing on low‐SES and high‐SES classrooms? How much impact does “teaching to the test” appear to have on test scores?