Universities should abolish standardized tests. Standardized tests only, at best, evaluate mindless knowledge of the core subjects. These tests don’t evaluate intangibles such as critical thinking, problem solving, artistic ability, or creativity. These are knowledgeable areas that cannot be evaluated by filling in a bubble. There’s always a remarkable mismatch between what’s taught and what’s tested. Standardized tests have not improved student performance and do not determine the difference between good test takers and students who are actually smart.
Grade point averages (GPA) are a 5 times stronger indicator of college success than standardized tests, according to a study of 55,084 Chicago public school students. One of the authors of the study, Elaine M. Allensworth, Ph.D., Lewis-Sebring Director of the University of Chicago Consortium, stated, “GPAs measure a very wide variety of skills and behaviors that are needed for success in college, where students will encounter widely varying content and expectations. In contrast, standardized tests measure only a small set of the skills that students need to succeed in college, and students can prepare for these tests in narrow ways that may not translate into better preparation to succeed in college.” Maintaining a good GPA requires consistent discipline. Showing up to class and participating and turning in assignments throughout the course of the year as opposed to students who do well on a test even if they do not have the motivation to consistently maintain good grades.
There’s always a remarkable mismatch between what’s taught and what’s tested. Standardized tests are made under the assumption that every teacher is teaching the class and subject the same exact way. It becomes a pressure on these teachers to make sure the learning
environment is perfect and suitable for every single student’s vastly different needs. Margaret Pastor, Ph.D., Principal of Stedwick Elementary School in Maryland, stated, “An assistant superintendent… pointed out that in one of my four kindergarten classes, the student scores were noticeably lower, while in another, the students were outperforming the other three classes. He recommended that I have the teacher whose class had scored much lower work directly with the teacher who seemed to know how to get higher scores from her students. Seems reasonable, right? But here was the problem The “underperforming” kindergarten teacher and the “high performing” teacher were one and the same person.” This speaks volumes because the development of your students might not always be determined solely by the teacher. Educators have more obstacles to jump through than never before. There are a multitude of distractions in the classroom that prohibits the student’s educational experience. You can have a great teacher, but if there are distractions in the classroom, there’s only so much the teacher can do to stop it. Teachers also have to cater to twenty, maybe up to thirty kids per classroom. Students have all
types of ways of learning and some may be more advanced than others, how is a single teacher supposed to cater to all twenty-five student’s individual needs and ensure that by the end of the school year they are all adequately equipped to take these tests.
Standardized tests have not improved student performance and do not determine the difference between good test takers and students who are actually smart. Standardized test scores are easily influenced by outside factors such as anxiety, tiredness, hunger, stress and other factors. The tests only show which students best prepare for the test but not what knowledge students might show if they didn’t wake up with crippling anxiety or their stomachs weren’t empty. Students are tested on material in their respective grade level but are not re-tested to determine if they have learned the content they tested poorly on the year before. Instead, as Steve Martinez, Ed.D., Superintendent of Twin Rivers Unified in California, notes, “each state currently reports yearly change, by comparing the scores of this year’s students against the scores of last year’s students who were in the same grade. Even though educators, parents and policymakers might think change signals impact, it says much more about the change in who the students are because it is not measuring the growth of the same student from one year to the next.”
Standardized tests simply are not cutting it. There’s always a remarkable mismatch between what’s taught and what’s tested. The tests have not improved student performance and do not determine the difference between good test takers and students who are actually smart. The classroom is not the same as it was when the people making the rules were in school as kids. The educational system needs to do better at meeting individual needs instead of throwing a blanket over every student and seeing who rises to the top based on one type of performance-based test.
