Are Standardized Tests Really Helping Students?
There are many different types of standardized tests as part of the Pennsylvania state and states' systems of assessment in schools. During this past school year, I completed my student teaching in a first grade classroom at Saint Cecilia Catholic School (SCS) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At SCS, only the second through eighth graders take the TerraNovas. The TerraNovas are a group of standardized achievement tests in the United States used to evaluate the academic achievement of students in K-12. Students who take the TerraNovas are assessed in the following areas: reading, language arts, vocabulary, spelling, mathematics, science, social studies, and other areas. SCS' administration made the decision that their first graders would not be required to take the TerraNovas because they did not view this as being developmentally-appropriate. Instead of standardized tests, my first graders took formative and summative assessments for spelling, phonics, reading comprehension, and mathematics. Typically, spelling and reading comprehension tests occurred every Friday whereas Phonics quizzes were pop quizzes. These Phonics pop quizzes were used just to see what the students know about long vowel sounds that they have already learned this school year. Math tests occurred at the end of every unit about once a month as well. My first grade students did not receive any testing for placement in reading or math levels. Typically, teachers who teach grades that are not required to take standardized tests have no roles or responsibilities for when their students take these assessments during the following school year. Usually, in the coming weeks of when it is time for students to take standardized tests, students' teachers will teach them how to fill out scantrons for multiple choice questions and guide them through practice tests.
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The politically correct reason that standardized tests are supposed to be used is to see what students' strengths and areas of improvement are. Some schools also use them to see where the school is as a high and where there are gaps. Many educators and administrators have different controversial opinions about standardized tests. There are several educators and administrators who are against students being required to take standardized tests, have mixed emotions about it, and very few who support it. From my perspective, I have mixed emotions about standardized tests. I see how standardized test scores can help to evaluate students' strengths and developmental concerns while they can also be very stressful for students. To elaborate, while standardized tests can be useful in some ways, they should not be used to measure students as a whole. For example, academically gifted students tend to easily succeed on standardized tests; however, this is only a "snapshot" of their strengths and areas of improvement. I have also observed that standardized tests tend to very stressful for the majority of society's young learners. This is because students are required to memorize a large amount of information and tend to be insecure about their scores in comparison to their peers' scores. Standardized tests should not be weighed so heavily for the purpose of fairness for students of all abilities. To elaborate, students with Title I needs, learning disabilities (LD), and other disabilities that affect cognitive skills tend to receive low scores on standardized tests. While standardized test scores can help students to receive scholarships for high school and college, there are also students who can succeed in educational settings without scholarships. There are other ways to assess students as well besides requiring them to remember so much information.
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While I have concerns about standardized testing, I have also observed that this form of assessments can help to determine students' support needs. For example, scores can show the strengths and developmental areas that students in the disability community need extra support in while in grade school. Sometimes scores on standardized, summative, and formative assessments can serve as evidence for students' eligibility and need for Individualized Education Programs (IEP), 504 Plans, and Special Education placements. Consistently needing to work on memorizing meaningful information for tests can also partially contribute to improving the working memory (WM) of students who struggle with this functional skill as part of their disabilities; however, I have also observed how much stress that tests cause for students with disabilities that affect their cognitive skills and students of all abilities. As a student myself, I remember being very stressed about tests and I still experience this stress when taking tests in college. To reiterate, students are required to memorize large amounts of information for tests. I have observed that sometimes there are close to or more than one hundred questions on standardized tests and other tests. This amount of information is very difficult for anyone to memorize just to receive a passing test score. This is especially true when taking into consideration that young children's frontal cortex as part of their brain is not fully developed yet. Anyone, especially at this age, has a limited memory. While people who struggle with WM as part of disabilities have capabilities, memorization is very difficult for them even when they study for several hours and days. Study guides, extended time, and reduced distraction environments tend to be very helpful academic accommodations for students with disabilities that affect their cognitive skills for the most part. While there are times that students with disabilities that affect their cognitive skills can pass tests with these supports, there are also many times that these students receive low test scores despite utilizing these supports. Low test scores can trigger depressive episodes as well as feeling like a "failure" for students whose disabilities cause them to struggle with social-emotional skills and students of all abilities. This can especially be true after all the effort to study and prepare that they may put in whereas when they receive a passing score, this can boost their self-esteem.
In addition, I have also observed that some standardized tests provide questions about concepts that students of all abilities have never learned before. For example, I remember seeing math concepts that I never learned before in the math section of standardized tests in my pre-college education. It is extremely difficult for any student to be able to correctly solve math concepts or answer any academic questions about something that they had never learned before. When my academically gifted brother was in his biomedical engineering undergraduate program at Temple University, one of his professors said that students are not the same person as they are when taking tests as compared to when they are not taking tests. This tends to be because they are so self-conscious about what will happen if they forget too many correct answers whereas when they are not taking tests, they can worry less about this.
As part of my professional philosophy as a teacher, I always acknowledge the fact that test scores do not determine any students' capabilities as a whole. All students should be told to try their best when taking any tests. They should also be reassured that everyone has different strengths to reduce their insecurity about potential low scores. Overall, it is important for all educators to recognize that every student learns differently just like every person is different.
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