Standardized Testing Needs Overhaul

Dec 13, 2011 Jennifer Arzola
Education Reflections

SAT... an acronym that strikes fear into the hearts of most high school students — well, except for the ones that pay someone to take the test for them. Students cheating on the SATs is just another way of showing that current testing strategies don’t work. For years teachers complained. Then the parents got involved. Today, the students handle the extreme pressure by avoidance, cheating and with anxiety.

SATs. ACTs. Common Core Assessments. Statewide testing. Today our students are tested and tested and tested. With all this new data comes some serious questions.


Scandal on the Sound

As you are well aware, 20-plus Long Island students are facing serious charges after either paying or accepting money for elevated SAT scores. The scandal involves fake ids and jail time. Reminiscent of The Great Gatsby these children had big hopes that cost them dearly. Unfortunately, their bad choices have now affected their peers, their teachers and their community.

The problem, though, goes much deeper than just a couple dozen kids cheating on a test. The problem this scandal illustrates is the raised pressure on all parties in education.

Testing has become a combat sport.

And the winners are the ones who game the system.


Do These Test Prove Anything

If you can pay for high scores are any of the test results valid? If minority children repeatedly score lower because of their poverty level is the test really gauging intelligence? How much does a teacher (who never takes the test) impact the scores?

All of these questions seem to have no answers. These tests, despite all their failings, are being used more frequently instead of less. The move toward Common Core Standards heads up quarterly nationwide tests, teacher merit pay and admission based on scores.

Jobs to Scores

Merit Pay. Performance Based Pay. Master Teacher Plans.

These are all names that connect a teacher’s worth to his/her student’s score on a standardized exam.

Scandals like the one on Long Island, calls of bias and student apathy raise a warning flag to teachers. Who in their right mind would want their pay decided on the performance of someone else? Who would put their economic stability in the hands of a uninterested participant?

The issue is so scary to teachers that lawsuits to prevent it have arisen. Recently the United Teachers Los Angeles (the LA union) dropped a lawsuit only after the school board agreed to remove scores tied to pay.

Not So Standard After All

Another fly in the ointment is the unpredictability of these so-called standard tests.

Subject to political and bureaucratic whims, standardized tests are changed frequently. These changes can mean dire things for the educators whose lives depend on them. For example, Kentucky has recently overhauled the state testing system. Schools around the state are bracing themselves for lower scores and more outrage.

The scandal in Long Island is, of course, the exception. Most students don’t cheat on their standardized exams, and most teachers acknowledge that they have a minimal role in the scores assigned.

The issue is not the exception. The issue is the rule. And the rule has become to raise the pressure, to raise the stakes and to raise the call to cheat. And that is a rule no teacher wants to cheat.