Overview:
Nationwide, students in K-12 participate in multiple standardized tests each year. Read what this retired educator has to say about them.
Standardized testing killed my career.
We live in a country where teachers are not respected on the whole. They are tasked with teaching a group of diverse learners with so many different backgrounds, learning styles, and degrees of readiness -whether developmental or amount of exposure. There are special needs students and students who are not native English speakers. Behavior must also be factored in because more often than not, every classroom has students (yes, plural!) who impede the teacher’s instruction and other students’ learning. Lest we forget class size.
In the last several years, I taught with at least 32 students. Therein lies some challenges and reasons standardized tests get an ‘F’ from this teacher.
What Standardized Testing Used to Look Like
As a child, I remember well completing the “bubble” tests. I remember the admonitions of nary a stray pencil mark that could take down the entire operation! There was the cursory, “We will know if you didn’t try!” warning. Yes, we felt stress over these tests, but not anything like what 3rd-grade students in Arizona endure. As I have given many times, their lecture had to include, “If you don’t do well on this test, you will not pass third grade!” While I appreciated the need to demonstrate my accountability, that is a lot to put on an 8-year-old’s shoulders. In my experience, that stipulation rarely resulted in any student being retained, although warranted, contradicting the need for such high-stakes standardized testing.
If it ended at the station with THE BIG TESTS, I might have lasted longer, but it’s about so much more than just the tests. As an educator, you know that standardized tests don’t just occur once a year. In my district, we were required to do standardized benchmark tests each quarter. Don’t forget the weekly skills tests like spelling, language, and math; quite a bit of time was spent on test prep. I once calculated the time spent on regular tests, test prep, and taking the actual tests, and it took up pretty close to one whole quarter, a fourth of the school year! While there is real value in tests, how they’re overdone creates an atmosphere where testing is all that matters. In the testing world, students are just numbers that generate revenue for the state and districts. Of course, it’s always about the money!
Students’ Performance When Testing
As an educator, you also know that most students don’t shine on tests like that. If you’ve proctored any of the benchmark or state tests, you know what it feels like to watch your best students making pictures with the math grids, highlighting mania with different colored highlighters, or the three sentences from your best writer. It’s maddening! We could teach so much more content and build experiences with students that actually matter, rather than sink so much of our time into tests. In fact, in Arizona, the practice was to teach what were determined to be the most critical standards over the first 3 quarters to be ready for the tests. If you think about adding that train of thought to the reality of time spent on tests, students are missing out on so much valuable instructional time!
The Swing in Standardized Testing
I’ve seen the pendulum in education swing a few times over the 27 years I actively taught. I did not see any of those pedagogies having a more negative impact than strictly teaching to test (not to be confused with teaching to *the* test). When we teach TO test, the students get lost. In my class, I had to devise ways to encourage kids to get through test prep, like little games & rewards through team points, etc., to keep students engaged.
Wouldn’t they have learned better by doing an experiment or a project, interacting with each other?
I think you know the answer to that.
Something else occurs when we teach TO test: students don’t retain information. We rushed them through the standards so they could take that test, but along the way, they didn’t have time to do the repetition needed to retain what they had learned. Remember those different factors that impact classes mentioned above? Some students are ready to receive the skills taught and don’t need as much repetition, whereas others need many attempts to understand and replicate.
Look at a classroom spreadsheet that shows students from high to low at some point. You will see students all over the board! Even standardized tests aside, it is a monumental task! Which is to say that logically, one can not look at test scores and see students for their achievement (or not) on the test. One can not see their test scores and understand how much growth they have made. One can not tell that they tried their little hearts out, but are still just getting by.
Going Back to the Basics
At some point, we stopped letting kids be kids. Elementary schools used to be magical places where kids could imagine and play while learning academics. We used to teach handwriting and do art projects. Who has time for that now? We have to push to test! The hook for some students, even attending school, is the science experiments or the oral presentation of reports they’ve done, silly brain breaks, math games, and so on. As I write this, I know teachers will say, “I do all that fun stuff.” More power to you. In my experience, districts take away more than they allow. I was at an ‘A’ school, so the pressure was even more intense.
There is so much more to this standardized testing issue. I speak to my experience and how it wasn’t just the children’s magic that was taken. My joy in teaching died right along with it. I remember the moment I decided to end my teaching career. It was late January, and we were beginning test prep. I stood at the board, thinking I just can’t. I’m done. Period.
Standardized testing represents too much of what the money dictates and NEVER enough of what is good and right for children. It can show how far money can reach. Money can’t teach, though, and many teachers are leaving the profession. Clearly, standardized testing is not the answer.
Janet Griffin is a passionate outdoor enthusiast, retired elementary educator, and avid writer. She enjoys sharing her knowledge of the outdoors, education, and her love of writing with others. Whether exploring the wilderness or spending time with family and beloved dogs, Janet embraces the outdoor lifestyle and inspires others to do the same.
