Without The Big Standardized Test, Would Schools Be Flying Blind?
The future of the big standardized test is in doubt. This year’s pandemic pause made the annual rite of spring both logistically impossible and generally pointless as a means of data collection. With the year thoroughly disrupted, there was no chance that the tests would generate any sort of usable information, but their cancellation raises two more questions—wouldn’t testing next year be equally pointless, particularly when the time could be better spent helping students catch up, and wouldn’t a two-year hiatus be the perfect time to end the practice entirely?
As noted in the delightfully-titled “Statewide Standardized Assessments Were in Peril Even Before the Coronavirus. Now They’re Really in Trouble,” the testing regimen has been falling out of favor with a wide variety of folks. Two years ago I was writing about the eroding support for high stakes testing, and things have not improved since,
This could be the end, but the annual Big Standardized Test still has its supporters. Some argue that even more testing will be required when schools open, perhaps to determine if students move up a grade, while one advocate tweeted that scrapping the tests means “we’ll fly blind.” That echoes the argument for the high stakes tests that has been pushed CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Without The Big Standardized Test, Would Schools Be Flying Blind?
