College Ready Blog

WaPo trots out some familiar arguments against state standardized testing to stir the pot on school accountability:

• Results in “dreary” drill-and-kill instruction
• Dehumanizes and stresses children
• Used unfairly to punish schools: NCLB’s Adequate Yearly Progress, grade promotion, performance pay, etc.
• Encourages cheating and other moral lapses among besieged educators

While we’re at it, let’s add other favorites:

• Impossible to measure or quantify academic growth
• Demonstrates lack of trust in education professionals
• Emphasizes literacy and mathematics at the expense of other learning (e.g., art, music, civic education, character-building…)

Many of these arguments are straight from the “anti-accountability” list of talking points. The “drill-and-kill” argument (a personal favorite) is more of an indictment of the school’s teaching methods than of the state test. There are plenty of examples of effective teaching strategies that produce better academic outcomes than rote exercises; schools should not be let off the hook for implementing effective strategies. Although there is a deeper problem if all the standards seem to lend themselves to rote memorization.

But legitimate frustration over state testing has to do with the overall poor condition of state standards as well as suspect test development and scoring. As long as states let problems with state standards/tests fester, calls for national standards will continue. A rigorous set of national standards is appealing, for the same reason state standards were once appealing, but it’s hard to believe that a useful set of standards would emerge once all the various interest groups put their red pens away.

No wonder so many 90-90-90 schools re-invent the wheel by developing their own standards and assessments for student learning.

Note: the link to the Fordham Institute’s State of State Standards 2006 study does not constitute an endorsement of their methodology. Also, what’s with all the WaPo links?