Standardized Testing

My Understanding of Standardized Testing.

“When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative assessment. When the customer tastes the soup, that’s summative assessment. — assessment expert Paul Black” (McAdoo, 2015, para. 10).  

Standardized Testing is, in fact, a summative assessment in which students must take the tests at the end of designated grade years during K-12, in accordance with the requirements of their state. For example: At the elementary level in California, 3rd-6th grade students are tested for Math and Reading in May by the Smarter Balanced and California Alternate Assessments (CAAs) (California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress [CAASPP], 2020). Alongside Math and Reading, students of K-12 who are speaking English as a Second Language are also tested for English proficiency between the months of February and May of each school year (California Department of Education, 2020).  Test groups are split into two test groups, neuro-typical students and those with disabilities, who are subjected to different testing standards. However, the goal of gauging progress towards college and career readiness is still the same.  Students who are diagnosed with educationally relevant disabilities have the right to take the California Alternate Assessment test, as well as special accommodations such as additional time or supportive technology.

 The Common Core State Standards curriculum was put in place as a measurement by which all educational stakeholders can help to maintain accountability to the collective inter-generational responsibility to pass on knowledge, and the confidence to use it. These test results are subject to interpretation by the general public, the media, politicians, academics, public advocacy groups, parents groups, administrators, principals and teachers across the U.S. There is often widespread disagreement over to lessons that should be taken from the scores, even more so when it comes to translating these findings into changes to curricular content, competency standards, or the tests themselves.

Positives of Standardized Testing. 

Before discussing the positive intentions of the Standardized Testing, I’d like to initiate Eisner’s description of its principles, “the standardized test is standard; it is the same for all students. It not only standardizes the tasks students will confront, it standardizes the goals against which they shall be judged” (Eisner, 1976, p. 139). Standardized Testing’s precise aim is to measure the progression of students’ learning in accordance with its formulated standards. Therefore, having objective goals is one of the positives of the Common Core States Standards [CCSS] represents. Thus, in the element of the objectives of standardization, contents in which what need to be taught, articulate uniformity. Content cohesion ensures convergent achievement and rigorous across the U.S. One of the great benefits of uniformity in the Common Core State Standards [CCSS] is that stakeholders can compare schools’ performances and achievements across states whose adoption to the CCSS.

Negatives of Standardized Testing.

Due to the cohesion between objective testing goals and the standard curriculum that teachers must follow, this enforcement, however, does restrain teachers’ creativity in content teaching that could lead to the disengagement of student’s interest and the domination of teacher-centered classroom environment. In fact, when No Child Left Behind in 2001 was signed into law, “the concentrated focus on math and reading scores intensified” (Maranto, n.d, p.2). Still, it is kept up-to-date as a means of highlighting these core subjects of standardized testing. 

 Due to the economic incentives and disincentives contained within the present-day the Common Core State curriculum. Districts, and school administrators, as well as teachers, are financially dependent upon the scores of their students. Consequently, there seems to be an emphasis on routine learning and reflexive recall, rather than creativity due to the difficulty of uniforming scoring the latter. This is of concern to me, because it appears that most teachers do not favor this model, as they believe that a few days of testing cannot adequately convey the cumulative results of hundreds of days worth of learning, where a greater diversity of methods and measures can be employed. Setting up teachers to make the choice between fair pay and professional convictions in regards to pedagogical priorities, casts a cloud over the teacher’s lounge, from my vantage point.

In the highly heterogeneous society, we have here in the U.S., could a set of rigid educational standards like the Common Core State Standards ever truly serve as a uniform means of measuring the worth of student effort? Given that personal autonomy and individual distinctiveness are part of the core values of the American psyche, is this a paradox we have created where the public school curriculum is at odds with the lessons passed down through the cultural milieu? Insofar as our goal in education is convincing each generation to embrace the acquisition of knowledge, wisdom, and practical skill, for the sake of self-interest; I would say that a standardized curriculum in a compulsory system is frequently in conflict with this aim. 

References

California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress [CAASPP]. (2020). California testing overview. http://www.caaspp.org/administration/about/testing/index.html

California Department of Education. (2020). 2020–21 California assessment system. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/ai/documents/calassesssystem.pdf

Eisner, E. (1976). Educational connoisseurship and criticism: Their form and functions in educational evaluation. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 10(3/4), 135-150. DOI:10.2307/3332067. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3332067

Maranto, J. (n.d). The effect of standardized testing on historical literacy and educational reform in the U.S. Fort Hays State University, pp.1-8. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1062724.pdf

McAdoo, M. (2015, May 7). Standardized tests have a purpose — just one. United Federation of Teachers. https://www.uft.org/news/news-stories/standardized-tests-have-purpose-just-one