What's Wrong with Standardized Tests?
 -- borrowed and slightly adapted from FairTest

• What is a "High-Stakes" Standardized Test?
  Many people are calling standardized tests that are being used for punitive measures such as retaining a student, or denying a student graduation a "High-Stakes" test.  Because of state and federal mandates, more tests are being used for this purpose.  (See sidebars on this page for statements from testing companies about this practice. See here for a list of organizations opposed to such testing practices.)
  
  
• Aren't Standardized Tests a fair evaluation tool if every child has to take it?
  By their nature, standardized tests are created to be easily graded, usually in a multiple-choice format. Each question has only one answer, and these questions do not measure the ability to think or create. Also by their nature, these tests reward the ability to quickly answer superficial questions that do not require critical thought.  Their use encourages a narrowed curriculum, outdated methods of instruction, and harmful practices such as retention in grade and tracking.  Some students just do not take these types of tests well. They also assume all test-takers have been exposed to a white, middle-class background. (See here for a former teacher's experience with this type of bias on an Ohio Proficiency Test.)
  
  
• Aren't Standardized Tests the most objective way to assess children?
  Only the scoring of multiple-choice answers is "objective" because it is done by machine. But correct answers that are only partially marked correctly (the "bubble" not filled all the way in, or stray marks outside the bubble) are marked wrong.  Human beings, who are quite subjective, choose what items to include on the test, the wording, content, the determination of the "correct" answer, and the type of testing situation.  Short answer questions and essay questions are evaluated by people who may not have an education degree, who are taught in a day or two how to "score" a test, and who have a high caseload of tests to score each day (see here). And now, companies have developed machines to assess writing.  As we know, machines cannot understand intent.  They do not recognize creative use of language. Yet, in the future, machines could be grading your child's test which is used to determine promotion to another grade or even graduation. 
  
  

• Aren't test scores the most reliable form of assessment?
  A test is completely reliable if you get exactly the same results the second time you administered it.  All existing tests have "measurement error."  This means that an individual's score may vary from day to day because of testing conditions, or the test-taker's emotional state.  As a result, many individual score are frequently not the most accurate of a child's capability.  Test scores of young children and scores on sub-sections of tests (reading one day, math another day, science another day, social science another day, etc.) are much less reliable than test scores on adults or whole tests.

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• Do test scores reflect real differences among people?
  Not necessarily.  To create a norm-referenced test (a test where half of the test-takers score above average, and the other half below average), test makers must make small differences among people appear large.  Content differs from one test to another, so even tests that claim to measure the same thing often produce very different results.
  
  
• Don't test makers remove bias from tests?
  Most test-makers review items for biases, such as offensive words, etc. But this is inadequate, since many forms of bias are not superficial (such as a child being asked to write about something that has never happened to him/her). Some test makers also use statistical bias-reduction techniques, but these techniques cannot detect underlying bias in the test's form or content.  As a result, biased cultural assumptions built into the test as a whole are not exposed or removed by test-makers.
  
  
• Do tests reflect what we know about how students learn?
  No. Standardized tests are based in behaviorist psychological theories from the 19th century.  While our understanding of the brain and how people learn and think has progressed enormously, tests have largely remained the same.  Behaviorism assumed that knowledge could be broken into separate bits and that people learned by passively absorbing these bits.  Today, cognitive and developmental psychologists understand that knowledge is not separable bits and that people (including children) learn by connecting what they already know with what they are trying to learn.  If they cannot actively make meaning out of what they are doing, they do not learn or remember.  Most standardized tests do not incorporate the modern theories and are still based on recall of isolated facts and narrow skills.
  
  
• Do multiple-choice tests measure important student achievement?
  Multiple-choice tests are a very poor yardstick of student performance.  They do not adequately measure the ability to write, to use math, to make meaning from text when reading, to understand scientific methods or reasoning, or to grasp social science concepts.  These tests also do not adequately measure thinking skills or assess what people can do on real-world tasks.
  
  
• Aren't the test scores helpful to teachers?
  Standardized, multiple-choice tests were not originally designed to provide help to teachers.  Classroom surveys show teachers do not find scores from standardized tests very helpful.  The tests do not provide specific information that can help a teacher understand what to do next in working with a student because they do not indicate how the student learns or thinks.  Good evaluation would provide helpful information to teachers.

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• Are readiness or screening tests helpful?
  Readiness tests, used to determine if a child is ready for school, are very inaccurate and unsound.  They encourage overly academic, developmentally inappropriate primary schooling.  Screening tests for disabilities are often not adequately validated; they also promote a view of children as having deficits to be corrected, rather than having individual differences and strengths on which to build.  We know that not everyone learns in the same way, yet we continue to insist that instruction and testing are "standardized."
  
  
• So are there more effective ways to evaluate student achievement or ability?
  Yes.  Good teacher observation, documentation of student work (portfolios to chart student progress throughout the year), and performance-based assessment, all of which involve the direct evaluation of student effort on real learning tasks, provide useful material for teachers, parents, the community and the government.
  
  
• For further resources see:
• FairTest
• "The Case Against Standardized Testing" by Alfie Kohn 
• Authentic Assessment
• Additional Resources
  
  -- 2004

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