Are teachers not receiving as much guidance as they had in previous years? Results culled from standardized tests can narrow down the reasons and, thus, point educators towards the right solutions. As Katrina Miller of Educational Partnerships explains,. We must overcome the fear of data in education. Having as much robust data as possible only helps us better understand student needs. Doctors order full bloodwork for a check-up so they have a picture of how the whole human system is working.
We need this same mindset in education. Why stress him out with a test? Our teachers definitely have great intuition about student progress. Changing those systems requires the hard statistical evidence provided by standardized tests.
It takes hard work to improve systems. Many people agree that forcing kids to take tests during a plague-ridden year would be pointless and even cruel. Indeed, early in the pandemic, the Trump administration allowed states to waive all spring standardized tests for The following year, many expected the Biden Administration to do the same thing, since large numbers of students were still learning remotely and schools had struggled all year to keep pace with learning.
However, the Biden administration heeded the concerns of civil rights and educational justice groups, requiring that states continue testing , precisely because it was such a challenging year and so many children would have fallen behind.
However, states received tremendous flexibility in how and who they tested in , so in truth, we are losing two years of data. This no doubt produces huge obstacles for districts that seek to diagnose the effectiveness of their schools and curricula, and removes a critical tool from the advocacy toolbelt of the civil rights sector.
Become an informed consumer. Information is power. In order to advocate effectively, you must understand the purpose of particular tests and how your school will use the results. Is it to drive instruction? Is it to measure state trends? Is it to fulfill federal regulations? One of the strings attached is your state has to come up with a plan to assess student progress during this pandemic year. No hiding from learning loss! We need the data in order to create plans that will address the crisis.
Our schools are failing to justly serve large groups of children; in this sense, supporting standardized testing is part of the work of ensuring child justice. Current standardized tests, while vital for improving learning gaps, are stuck in the Stone Age. In order to minimize the time and money spent on assessments, state education systems need to invest in innovating our testing infrastructure.
Using this information, the US Department of Education can think of and implement solutions to fix the problem, allowing students to thrive in an academic environment. In some cases, schools have shortened recess in order to prepare for standardized tests.
This, along with the pressure of the test, can cause stress and burnout. Standardized tests put pressure not only on students but teachers as well. Teachers may stop trying new teaching methods and techniques. They may be worried that untested methods will backfire and cause students to score lower than before.
There are cases where students have demonstrated understanding of a subject through various assessments, but are not as skilled at taking multiple-choice tests. When students score low in standardized tests, they may feel that they are a failure, losing self-confidence in the process. Standardized testing as a measure of student success is indeed controversial. Assessments are useful when they are used to help schools improve the quality of teaching and learning.
INcompassing Education provides on-site, off-site, and online professional development for administrators and teachers. Contact us to learn more. This post contains Amazon affiliate links. Schools, colleges, and states that require standardized testing generally believe these to be true, even if they are also aware of some of the downsides to standardized tests see below.
The obvious purpose of standardized testing is to create a standard. Proponents of standardized testing argue that some kind of examination outside of school curricula—which can vary widely by school district—can help an education system better compare students from very different backgrounds because all these students took the exact same test.
By measuring students against that universal standard, it becomes easier to evaluate and rank them. In the same way that standardized tests provide a standard to measure students, they can also help set larger educational standards for schools across a state or country. If students in particular school districts are struggling to perform at grade level, superintendents and governments know to get involved.
In addition to comparing students against one another or identifying problematic schools or districts, standardized tests can also illustrate student progress over time.
Taking the same or similar tests over the years can allow students to indicate measurable improvement. Standardized tests can give students from under-performing high schools a chance to prove that they have mastered ample academic material despite their circumstances.
Because standardized tests are not tied to any one high school curriculum, they can offer an inclusive opportunity for students to highlight their successful performance. Proponents argue that standardized testing can help level the playing field in public education. Teacher grading can be subjective in other ways, including favoritism towards certain students, and it can find its basis in non-achievement factors like classroom behavior, participation, or attendance.
But when students take a standardized exam, a much clearer view of academic mastery emerges. Standardized assessments of achievement can be used for comparison and accountability purposes, both of which are discussed in turn. The very objectivity of standardized exams yields comparability of student achievement, a desirable feature for parents and practitioners alike. Most parents, for example, would like to know whether their child is meeting state benchmarks, or how she compares to statewide peers.
Statewide standardized exams give parents this important information. Meanwhile, school-shopping parents have every right to inspect and compare the standardized test results from a range of schools, including charters, district schools, and STEM schools, before selecting a school for their child. For instance, the principal of East Elementary could compare the achievement of her students against those attending West Elementary, the district average, the county average, and the statewide average.
How do her students stack up? Only a statewide standardized test could tell. Interestingly, proposals have been floated to allow schools to select their own assessment—a pick-your-own-assessment policy.
This is a flawed idea and should be rejected. It would undermine the comparability principle of statewide testing. First, to be clear, standardized exams are not the all the same. Should we infer that Columbus students are actually achieving at higher levels than Worthington?
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