Achievement Testing is Forever

Standardized Achievement Testing Is Forever

“Bad Teacher” is a profane and obscene film that people should avoid. Unfortunately I didn’t, but I always look to salvage something of value from every experience, good or bad, and I found something in this film worthy of discussion: public school standardized achievement testing. In this film the bad teacher steals the answer sheet for an Illinois state achievement test and drills her students on test question answers. They score highest in the school district, and she wins 6,000 dollars, which she wants for plastic surgery. It is interesting to note that at this writing the school systems of Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C are under investigation for widespread cheating on standardized tests.

             Standardized achievement testing has been around for years and has political origins. Current testing projects began when citizens asked these questions: “How come so many youngsters graduate without basic skills? Many cannot read at grade level or do basic arithmetic, and most have little or no knowledge of their nation’s history or its government. How come? We must do something!”

            Of course schools have given standardized tests for years. For a long time the New York Regents exam was held up as an example of the kind of test states should require for graduation. Unfortunately, as more students entered high school more failed the exam, causing a lot of fatuous hand wringing about cultural bias. I don’t know what New York does these days.  

I can remember being herded into the school cafeteria long ago for several exhausting days of testing. Incorrigible seventh graders at the time, we made testing into a game. Instead of trying to answer questions, many of us made designs with the opscan-like blocks on our answer sheets. (They didn’t have opscan in those days, but answer sheets had four blocks like opscan sheets. Tests were graded with punched out overlays.)  Some made diamonds, others triangles. We had great fun.

Who knows how our school did? I do know one thing. Many of my classmates went to college and on to successful careers in engineering, law, medicine, and business. The friend seated across from me making zig zag designs on his answer sheet graduated from Georgia Tech and has had a successful engineering career.

            About thirty-five years later, in response to the question, “How come our children don’t learn?” state legislators got involved and mandated still more testing. In Maryland, where I then lived and worked, Project Basic was created to teach basic skills. Basic skills tests, called functional tests – a writing test, a basic math test, and a citizenship test – were given to ninth graders. All students had to pass the tests to graduate. Since many entering ninth graders lacked basic reading and math ability, remedial classes were formed to teach them what they should have learned earlier.

            The tests measured subject matter I learned in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. Unfortunately, many of our entering ninth graders lacked these basics, hence the emphasis on testing. Later on the state department of education created a more advanced and accelerated battery of tests, which also became the focus of school instruction.

            By the time No Child Left Behind (NCLB) came along, Maryland schools were well along in testing. Wrong headed though it is, NCLB is just another step in a process begun years before by state legislators and educationists trying to improve the schools, or more cynically if one wishes, to justify their jobs and their expenditure of taxpayer money, or, even more cynically, to centralize education and remove local control.  

            An unfortunate result of functional testing in Maryland was its effect on mentally challenged students. Before the functional testing program these students participated in vocational development programs where they learned entry level job skills and were placed in jobs while still in school. After testing began, parents were asked if they wanted students to get a regular high school diploma, in which case they had to pass the functional tests, or to continue in vocational development. Sad to say, many parents chose the former, causing special education teachers to shift their focus from vocational development to test preparation.          

Standardized achievement testing is unavoidable in today’s educational environment. Rational instruction should produce sensible testing and successful students, but too many cultural currents beat against school success, especially in school systems where disadvantaged children form the majority. In spite of all the blather one hears about education from all political sectors, right to left, no one really knows what to do about public education, or at least, no one knows how to create politically viable solutions to public education’s intractable problems.

            But educationists can write tests! The names may change but programs like NCLB        will continue.