How to make standardized tests fairer
The standardized testing onslaught that has dominated public schools in recent years — and a growing resistance movement by parents, students and educators — has persuaded some states to review the load of K-12 assessments with an eye toward eliminating exams deemed unnecessary. In fact, some states and school districts have already announced that they have dropped some tests, and some tests are being shortened. None of that means, however, that standardized testing is going away.
As Bobson Wong writes in the following post, standardized testing is here to stay — even though the quality of many of the exams are poor or at best average in determining the depth of a student’s knowledge and skills. New federally funded Common Core tests were meant to be more sophisticated than older exams used around the country — and are — but a lack of time and sufficient funds meant that they don’t come close to being at the level many had hoped. Wong (@bobsonwong), who has taught high school math in New York City public schools for nine years, explains how he thinks standardized tests could be made better — and fairer to students. He is a recipient of the Math for America Master Teacher Fellowship and the New York Educator Voice Fellowship. In this post, he writes about standardized tests and how to make them fairer to students.
By Bobson Wong
Amid the recent debate over new teacher evaluation systems, one thing remains clear: standardized tests won’t be going away anytime soon. Whether you support or oppose the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers, we should all agree that our students deserve high-quality assessments that fairly and accurately measure what they know. Unfortunately, much of the debate around the new teacher evaluation system hasn’t focused on the quality of the standardized tests that we give to our students. My experience as a high school math teacher has enabled me to see firsthand what elements of our current testing system work and what don’t.
New York has a generally successful model for developing and sharing questions for the Regents Exams given to high school students. Educators play a key role in the process – all Regents test questions are created and reviewed multiple times by qualified New York State educators, who have at least a master’s degree in the relevant subject area and who are chosen through an open application process. Furthermore, old Regents exams are available online for people to see. As a teacher, I often use previous Regents How to make standardized tests fairer - The Washington Post: