Standardized Testing: An Unnecessary Evil

An American educator who was examining the British educational system once asked a headmaster why so little standardized testing took place in British schools. "My dear fellow," came the reply, "In Britain we are of the belief that, when a child is hungry, he should be fed, not weighed" (Bowers 1). Even though this quote can be construed as being comical and light-hearted, the anecdote suggests the obvious question: "Why do we do so much standardized testing in the United States?" Standardized testing places incredible amounts of stress on teachers and school administrators, as well as the students taking the tests who are afraid that if they don't pass this exam, they might not be able to graduate. Standardized testing does not take in to account students with disabilities, bilingual students who have not yet mastered the entire English vernacular, and students with poor test taking skills. Therefore, if alternatives like portfolio-based assessments and exit exams were implemented, the use of standardized testing would be unnecessary.

To begin, tests are called "standardized" when all students taking the exam answer the exact same questions under similar conditions and their responses are scored in the same way...in theory. Even though the questions may be the same, the conditions are impossible to standardize. For example, the people administering the test do not take into the account the students from low-income families, who may suffer problems with housing, nutrition or health care. Also, even if a student knows the material inside and out, backwards and forwards, they just simply do not test well. Test anxiety, along with knowing how important it is to do well on the tests, completely stress them out to the point where it is almost impossible for them concentrate and do well.

During my interview with an art teacher at a high school in central Indiana, I learned that a lot of teachers do not agree with all of the standardized testing that takes place in our schools today. When asked what she thought of tests such as the SAT, she said "I think the SAT is good for students who want to pursue an education in areas relating to math, science, or reading, but as far as people like me who wanted to pursue a career in art, the test was pointless yet I still had to take it to get in to college." It is true that no standardized test to date scores people on their artistic abilities. One might argue that the SAT is required because if you cannot do well on that, then you obviously don't have all the knowledge it takes to be a productive citizen. However, a student cannot graduate with failing grades in all of their classes. Teacher responds with, "therefore, why does a student who plans on majoring in Art have to know how to divide the square root of x by the absolute value of seven times forty-three? It just doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me." It might sound funny, but I believe this to be very true. I too do not understand why a student that is one hundred percent sure that they want to major in an art related field has to take the SAT's to be able to get in to a good college.

One major problem with standardized testing is all the pressure it puts on educators and the school administration. The stress is almost entirely because of President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. This Act, commonly referred to as the NCLB, expects schools to improve by a state-determined percentage on the standardized testing every year (NCLB par. 3). If the school does not improve in its standardized testing scores, the school's budget will subsequently be cut drastically. For low-income schools, this is just completely unfair. How does President Bush expect the student to learn more with fewer available resources? The pressure to make sure every single student does well on the test causes teachers to be stressed out and sometimes even depressed because they are so nervous about their student's and school's test scores. For example, in Atlanta, Georgia, Simonton Elementary school principal Betty Robinson committed suicide in her office by shooting herself in the head just one day after finding out that her school was failing by the state's standards (Teachers Feel Stress of High Stakes Testing par. 3-4). Of course no one can say for sure the exact reason why she took her own life, but under the circumstances, it can most definitely be inferred that the standardized test results were definitely a factor. The bottom line is; standardized testing should not be so incredibly important that it causes so much stress and have the ability to potentially drive school administrators to suicide.

One solution to solve the problem of standardized testing is to implement the use of portfolio-based assessments (Pollard 1). The approach of portfolio-based testing may vary, but they all rest on records kept by the teacher and on collections of a student's work over their years in school. During every school year, teachers collect important projects such as term papers, final exams, and lab reports. This cumulative portfolio shows the progress in specific courses. Students are also encouraged