6 Ways Standardized Testing Damages Students
Standardized testing, used widely across the United States to diagnose learning disorders; assess students for admission to everything from kindergartens to colleges; and evaluate the effectiveness of curricula, teachers, and schools, is damaging the American education system.
The negative impacts of high-stakes standardized testing are both broad and deep, and felt by students, families, and educators alike. Here are six ways standardized testing hurts everyone involved in education:
1. It narrows the curriculum
When educators are under ever-increasing pressure to raise test scores, tests become the focus of education, not subject matter. And any subjects that aren’t tested become peripheral or even superfluous.
Science, social studies, foreign language, physical education, handwriting, and the arts are all among the subjects squeezed out of class time and funding for the sake of standardized test prep. Unfortunately, these are also the subjects that often nourish a student’s creative spirit, expand their consciousness, and bring them joy. Do we really want a system that drains the joy out of learning?
2. It leads to corruption
As the pressure builds, funding and job security is often tied to student performance on standardized testing, which inevitably leads to cheating and corruption. Students cheat. Instructors cheat. Entire school systems cheat by doing things like inflating test scores and misrepresenting dropout rates.
3. It’s unequitable across demographics
Rather than providing equal opportunity to all students, research shows that standardized testing negatively impacts students of color and those from low-income families. This affects both individuals as well as the school systems serving them, and, frankly, just isn’t fair.
4. Leads to “teaching to the test”
The push for high scores requires a mounting need for test prep, forcing teachers to abandon creativity and individualized education. According to one report, 60 percent of teachers responded that standardized test prep either dictated or substantially affected their teaching. That’s over half of what they taught.
5. It doesn’t measure what really counts
The intrinsic limitations of standardized testing neglect to truly demonstrate student knowledge and ability — in other words, they don’t work. They simultaneously prohibit the development of more important skills. Renowned author and lecturer Alfie Kohn discusses this eloquently in his case against standardized testing. Worse yet, it goes against all reason to place high stakes on a test where guessing constitutes a valid strategy.
6. Reduces the motivation of educators
The high-stakes nature of standardized testing and its accompanying pressure take a serious toll on the job satisfaction of teachers. A 2014 survey by the National Education Association revealed that a full 45 percent of teachers surveyed had even considered leaving the profession because of standardized testing.
We cannot afford to lose talented teachers to tests.
Smart alternatives
While standardized testing is utilized internationally to a degree, other countries employ proficiency-based systems that assess students through various “show-what-you-know” opportunities. In fact, the U.S. is the only advanced industrial nation to depend so strongly on multiple-choice tests.
Ironically, even as American schools increase their focus on test prep, they lag behind the majority of other developed countries on international standardized tests. This is another strong argument that proficiency-based systems are far superior to those that revolve around standardized tests.
Ultimately, quality education is the bedrock of a strong, powerful, and compassionate nation. The young people of today are the leaders of tomorrow, and in addition to learning how to complete standardized math problems, they deserve to learn how to sing, how to make art, how to find their place and their passion.
We need to develop more than just their testing capacity; we need to develop them. Instead of sorting students into buckets that often carry the implication of failure or unintelligence, we have to start letting them know that every one is brilliant in his or her own way.
