The Side Effects of Standardized Testing

Other professional educators share my concerns about achievement testing. A few years ago, I spent an afternoon in the Multnomah County Library in Portland searching through education journals, reading articles on testing and evaluation. Here are the notes I gleaned that day.

• The single most common misuse of any test score is as a sole evaluation tool, contrary to test makers' recommendations.
• Tests do not measure what they are said to measure.
• Standardized tests cannot measure creativity.
• Test scores reward children who have one style of learning, and penalize all other children for having a different style of learning.
• Standardized tests cannot measure the ability to think, and actually teach children bad thinking habits, such as trying to outguess the test makers, rather than thinking for themselves.
• Standardized tests result in a type of evaluation that is easy to manage (true/false, multiple choice). Thinking skills are very difficult and time consuming to evaluate.
• Standardized tests are designed, not to test individual progress, but to compare a child's progress to the progress of other children. Thus, tests promote competition, not cooperation.
• Poor test scores decrease self esteem, possibly leading to social and discipline problems.
• Testing can damage the trust relationship between teacher and student.
• Test scores and grading are a divisive force in families, separating parents from their natural position as the child's first and most committed teacher. (Wow! Some educators know this! Dare I hope for a positive future?)
• Reliance on standardized test scores reduces initiative, independence, creativity, and willingness to take risks in learning situations.
• Test scores become the goal of student work (extrinsic reward)rather than the sense of satisfaction and wonder that naturally follows discovery of something new (intrinsic reward).
• The drive for high test scores creates unnecessary, unproductive stress.
• Standardized tests promote under achievement.
• Test makers assume that all children have equal readiness for all subjects at the same age.
• Tests focus on a narrow band of learning, emphasizing memorization skills.
• Reliance on test scores and grades causes students to drop courses of study.
  
  

It is worth noting that standardized tests, in addition to being narrowly focused and frequently misused comparative measurements of academic progress, are powerful teachers in their own right. Only when these instruments have been imposed on huge populations of students for many years can we begin to see that the tests take on a teaching life of their own, quite apart from the intentions of their creators.

This article by Ann Lahrson-Fisher was included in her book "Fundamentals of Homeschooling: Notes on Successful Family Living."  It was originally published by the National Home Education Network.