Persistent Issues In Curriculum: Assessments

There must be accountability for public education and the best way to measure achievement is through assessment. How do we know whether students are making progress in their learning? How do we know whether students are achieving immediate and long term goals and objectives? There has to be an accurate measurement to monitor and summarize student learning and achievement that is “embedded within instruction” on a continuous level. Teachers use a variety of assessments in all shapes and sizes to address student progress throughout the school year, both summative and formative that help them make professional judgements concerning student competency and progress. The evidence shown in the assessments assist teachers to guide students in the direction they need to go to be successful in the classroom and beyond. These types of assessments are necessary to monitor progress and demonstrate accountability for students and teachers.

Our schools frequently administer standardized tests to measure educational learning outcome. What is the purpose of standardized tests? The results provide student data to improve learning, or at least that is what I have been told, although the improvement has not been as clear as classroom assessments. It seems to me that some schools use the standardized test data to discover where students are in their learning, and assist them to where they need to be in their learning, but there are those schools who do not use the standardized test results, and some who never look at them at all. In past years, our school unit has spent a good amount of time analyzing standardized student data to improve student achievement. We have placed many students in Response To Intervention classes to assist students with their learning progress and placement to benefit the student. We have shifted our instruction in math, reading, and language arts to accommodate student progress, but we did not make the annual yearly progress status. Students can learn to test well, but why are they learning to test well? Students need to become reflective, critical thinking, concerned and informed citizens who will contribute to the common good in their own community, our national community, and our global community. How do the standardized tests fit into this picture?

According to the National Center For Fair and Open Testing, “Their use encourages a narrowed curriculum, outdated methods of instruction, and harmful practices such as retention in grade and tracking.” The National Center states that tests do not reflect what students learn and are based “in behaviorist psychological theories from the nineteenth century. While our understanding of the brain and how people learn and think has progressed enormously, tests have remained the same. Behaviorism assumed that knowledge could be broken into separate bits and that people learned by passively absorbing these bits. Today, cognitive and developmental psychologists understand that knowledge is not separable bits and that people (including children) learn by connecting what they already know with what they are trying to learn. If they cannot actively make meaning out of what they are doing, they do not learn or remember. But most standardized tests do not incorporate the modern theories and are still based on recall of isolated facts and narrow skills.” Standardized tests do not prepare students in critical thinking skills, or analytical problem solving, and they do not prepare our students for “real life.”

Standardized testing needs to enter the 21st century methodology, aligning techniques with structure. There is no room in our schools for outdated assessments that are not aligned with what schools need to teach, including standardized tests. In 21st century classrooms, “Assessment moves from regurgitation of memorized facts and disconnected processes to demonstration of understanding through application in a variety of contexts.” We owe it to our students to change standardized testing, if we use it at all. We need to align learning with what is actually necessary for students to be prepared life long learners. There is an opportunity for schools to change their philosophy, and meet the 21st century demands our students will face in their future. Philosopher John Dewey believed, “the aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education...The object and reward of learning is continued capacity for growth.” Schools cannot remain in the standardized test quagmire for our sake, and the sake of our students. Schools need to grow into the 21st century.


Fairtest. What’s Wrong With Standardized Tests? December 17, 2007 Retrieved from: http://fairtest.org/facts/whatwron.htm

Scholastic, Inc. Standardized Tests: What You Should Know Before Your Child Sharpens His #2 Pencil. Retrieved from: http://www.scholastic.com/resources/article/standardized-tests/

21st Century Schools, (2010). What Is 21st Century Education? Retrieved from: http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/What_is_21st_Century_Education.htm