Failing the Test
Education – Part 3 – In every political campaign (at least the good ones) there is a “book,” outlining the issues the candidate will face, and the arguments and positions the candidate takes. It is so everyone on the campaign is literally on “the same page” when it comes to that issue. I’m not running for office, but over the next several weeks, I will be presenting a series of issues for my “briefing book.”
Failing the test
When I was the Dean of Students at our local high school, one of the worst parts of my job was attending parent/teacher meetings where staff talked about the behavior problems of kids. It wasn’t because of the kids actions; the hard part was listening to my colleagues use “educationese” to the parents. They talked about “behavioral norms” and “learning objectives” and “peer interactions.” Many parents didn’t get it: I considered it my job to translate those terms into “regular English” for them, and their kids. The “educators,” intentionally or not, were talking over their heads, and parents and kids rightfully resented it.
Standardized testing – giving students multiple commercially produced tests – creates an entire world of “educationese” for parents and students. It sounds complicated, important, and seems to be of enormous value. Kids, parents, and teachers are threatened by the impact of results, and are left mystified about what they really mean.
American educational leaders and politicians have made standardized testing more important than grades, individual teacher evaluation, and student potential and progress. We have turned over those decisions to commercial test creators, with a vested interest in making “their tests” important. With all of that power, the tests better be meaningful. The problem: they aren’t.
the Cost
In 2012, the estimated cost for standardized testing in US public schools was $1.7 Billion (Education Week.) Seven years later that cost is likely to have grown, but, frankly, it is still a very small percentage of the overall costs in public education.
More significantly, standardized tests cost time. Many school districts spend twelve days or more on tests a year, that’s over two weeks of time in a thirty-six week school year. When the costs of teachers administrating the tests and building operational costs are added in, the price goes up.
But it’s not about the money. The question is: does the “theory” of standardized testing actually work? It goes like this: take a vast number of students, and give them identical tests to try to develop a “scientific metric” (meaning numbers) evaluating what they know, where they rate among their peers, and their ranking against “historic” scores from the past. It’s a statistician’s dream: percentiles, rankings, base numbers, fractional growth coefficients, and the “dreaded” annual yearly progress.
figures lie
There is nothing more convincing than numbers on paper. “The Results” carry a weight of truth that’s difficult to argue. “It’s right here in the scores,” an administrator can say, “you don’t have any ‘facts’ to argue against them.”
My first principal, a powerful old-school educator from Alabama, had a favorite phrase: “figures lie, and liars figure.”
A good friend of mine, a successful businessman, responding to one of my essays on education by saying:
“The problem was never a need for quantitatively more education. It was misguided education.” He added: “They (students) need to learn how to work as part of a team. They need to learn how to solve complex problems involving customers. Today’s curriculums teach too much unneeded stuff. ‘Facts’ that can be conjured up on Google need not be taught.”
Both of these men are right, and have put their finger directly on the problem of basing “success or failure” in education on standardized tests. Standardized tests require “objectifying” all problems into multiple-choice answers. What my business friend demands is that students learn how to work together on complex problems, involving interactions with others. That’s not a problem that can be broken down into an “objectified” single answer, an “A,B, C or D” choice. It demonstrates how this kind of testing misses the target. Instead of learning skills for real world outcomes, students are tested for objective and usually rote, knowledge.
the gospel of numbers
Once those results are “certified,” they become gospel. They are used to promote students, evaluate teachers, and determine how funding for schools is apportioned. In addition, they can even determine the physical control of the school district. In Ohio, a District that fails to meet the “standards” on a long-term basis can have their leadership removed, their governance taken from the community and given to the the state, and their teacher contracts voided.
The “figures aren’t lying.” It’s worse than that. The figures tell us information that isn’t relevant to what schools should be doing. Look, I was a track coach for forty years. If I had a runner who practiced really hard, but was unable to improve on their competitive performance, I failed. It didn’t matter if the practices were “successful;” in track it’s about the race. I needed to change the workout plan; to find a way for that athlete to succeed in the one place that mattered, competition.
Schools are working incredibly hard at testing; they are producing great test takers, and encouraging great teachers of tests. What they are failing to do is produce the workers my business friend needs. We are “successful” in practice, but losing the race.
changing the focus
It’s time to end the focus on standardized test, and give students the learning and cooperative skills they need in the “real world.” It doesn’t mean the end of tests (though ending most standardized testing would be great), but it should mean ending US education’s focus on this irrelevant outcome. Do that, and let great teachers do what they do best: leading, encouraging, problem solving, and finding ways for kids to succeed. We should stop worrying about the “numbers” and look at the broader success of student achievement. We need to give them what they really need to win their race. Success on a test isn’t it.
