CURMUDGUCATION: The Correct Number of Standardized Tests

CURMUDGUCATION: The Correct Number of Standardized Tests:

The Correct Number of Standardized Tests

The national conversation will now swing around to figuring out exactly how many standardized test should be given in schools. What, we will all wonder, is the correct number of standardized tests necessary for every student to experience in a year, or in an entire school career.

Here's the correct answer.

None.

Zip. Zero. Nada.

Students need standardized tests like a fish needs a bicycle. Standardized tests are as essential to education as a mugging is essential to better financial health.

Is there a benefit to the child to be compared and ranked against the rest of the children in the country, to be part of the Great Sorting of children into winners and losers? No. Having such rankings and ratings may advance the agenda of other folks when it comes to writing policy and distributing money, but those benefits are for those folks-- not the children. The mugger may benefit from mugging me, but it does not follow that I enjoy a benefit.

Are there standardized tests from which a classroom teacher can glean useful information? Sure-- but those tests are best chosen to fit the needs and concerns of one particular teacher and one particular collection of students. A diagnostic test might help me with Chris, but there's no reason to believe it would help me better understand Chris if it were given to every other student at the same time.
  
Do the poor children of some non-white non-wealthy neighborhood need to take the Big Standardized Test just like the rich white kids so that we have equity? Maybe-- but you know how else we could even that out? We could have all the public school kids do what the very wealthy private school students do-- take no BS Test at all. That would also provide equity. 
Can I squeeze some useful information out of some standardized tests? Sure. I can grow and learn CURMUDGUCATION: The Correct Number of Standardized Tests: