How Useful Are Standardized Tests?
To the Editor:
“In Defense of Annual School Testing,” by Chad Aldeman (Op-Ed, Feb. 7), argues that Washington should continue to require states to give each student standardized tests each year.
Federal and state governments have a legitimate interest in knowing whether cohorts of students are making appropriate progress as they go through school. It’s possible to gather that information by testing less frequently and by using sampling techniques similar to those employed by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Districts, schools and teachers all have a responsibility to measure students’ learning frequently — far more often than once a year — in order to help them grow. Standardized tests are among the measures they use. But the same ones aren’t equally useful or necessary in every school or district; different measures can provide different kinds of information, offering more or less insight into the needs of a particular student or group of children.
Information about student progress, including test results, should be readily available to parents and communities. Federal and state testing can be significantly less invasive than it is and still provide accountability. There’s no reason to require that all children in a state take the same standardized exams every year.
MICHAEL V. McGILL
Morris, Conn.
The writer is director of the district leadership and reform program at Bank Street College of Education and former superintendent of schools in Scarsdale, N.Y.
To the Editor:
Chad Aldeman praises standardized tests for allowing for “a much more nuanced look at student performance.” I’m a teacher, and the only thing I know about the test is what my students scored on it. We receive no feedback at all. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong as a teacher, or what I could do differently next year. My students don’t get that feedback either.
Nobody ever comes away from the testing knowing what he or she did wrong or how to improve. Shouldn’t they?
JOSH MAROWITZ
Burlington, N.C.
To the Editor:
Chad Aldeman says he wants to keep the status quo — high-stakes annual testing in grades three to eight and once in high school.
In January, the American Federation of Teachers and the Center for American Progress issued a set of principles for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. At its core was a commitment to equity, and a robust accountability system that uses multiple measures and counts standardized tests once each in elementary, middle and high school.
Such a system would limit the high-stakes testing that is taking the joy out of learning and the innovation out of teaching, and frankly did not accomplish the intended purpose — to ensure that every child would be proficient in reading and math by 2014.
We believe that annual testing has a role: to provide information and diagnostics on student progress, but not as a basis for imposing high-stakes, punitive consequences. High-stakes testing shouldn’t drive federal policy; the needs of our children should. That’s why our plan takes the focus off high-stakes tests and returns the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to its original goal — equity.
Half of public school students live in poverty. More than 30 states fund public education below pre-recession levels. We need to level the playing field and ensure that all kids have equal access to things like computers, smaller class sizes, nurses and counselors — even when their communities can’t afford them.
RANDI WEINGARTEN
President
American Federation of Teachers
Washington
To the Editor:
Chad Aldeman defends annual school testing as the way to assess school quality. In a recent Times article, the New York City schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña, was quoted as saying, “I know a good quality school when I’m in the building.”
I agree with Ms. Fariña. An experienced educator can determine the quality of a school by observing the students’ demeanor, looking at the displays in the classrooms and common areas, peering into the classrooms, checking out routines and activities, and other criteria.
A competent principal knows who the most effective teachers are, which ones would be effective with more support and those who would benefit from changing careers. Most of the teachers, pupils and informed parents in the school could give you the same information.
Rather than relying on commercial testing, teachers can and do devise their own tests to determine how to focus their instruction. Teachers usually keep folders with samples of children’s work, so that parents can observe growth throughout the school year.
I believe that students would benefit greatly if the enormous amount of How Useful Are Standardized Tests? - NYTimes.com