Standardized Testing and Educational Outcomes

Standardized testing is a complex issue with many controversial details, and its merit as a means to test educational outcomes is a subject of debate. There has been a great deal of research done on both sides of the issue, which a number of issues explored. Among those issues is the actual importance of the testing, the benefits of the testing, cultural bias of standardized testing, and possible alternative means of testing educational outcomes. Even with the millions of dollars that has been poured into these questions, many of them remain unanswered.

The importance of examining standardized testing has become glaringly important over the last eight to ten years. The primary means of establishing federal education funding in the United States over that period has been a result of the results of standardized testing. Billions of dollars are allocated each year to individual states, municipalities, and school boards based on the results of standardized testing, and because of that, it is an issue of immense importance from a fiscal standpoint. If the validity of standardized testing as a method of testing educational outcomes were called into question, it would suggest that the money allocated in that fashion was essentially wasted.

Another reason that this examination is of importance is the way standardized testing can drive the educational path of an individual. It is now almost universally accepted that you will need to complete and score well on at least one of a number of standardized tests to attend a traditional university. Though the use of the SAT and ACT examinations is the most common way these are done, there is also a number of other tests, including the COMPASS program and other tests for trade and technical schools. The results of these tests can determine someone's eligibility to enter the school, whether they will be given preference over another student for admission, and whether they will be extended additional financial aid. It is for these financial and educational reasons that the importance of examining this issue cannot be questioned.

The first piece of literature I will be reviewing on this issue is Fostering Creativity or Teaching to the Test? By Christopher Luongo. This paper is a review of the use of standardized testing in American schools, and whether or not is is hampering the creativity of students, and whether there are opportunities to explore other methods of standards-based education that are not based upon standardized testing alone, and whether it was leading to positive outcomes in the end result.

The actual methodology of his research was simple. He examined information from individual state and Federal Departments of Education to see if test results rose after the implementation of standards in the testing of that information. What he found surprised him.

"High-stakes testing often causes educators to lose sight of meaningful and creative science instruction. When students take more responsibility for their learning, creativity can be stimulated as a result." (Luongo, 55) He saw that an emphasis on standards actually improved the creativity and understanding of the material when teaching science, but only when the curriculum was designed around that method of testing. He advocates a method of curriculum design referred to as Inquiry-based education. It involves first designing the test and the concepts which you would like to get across and teach to the students, and then to design your teaching around that, rather than designing the lessons before-hand. He goes out of his way to argue this point, while still remaining skeptical to the idea of teaching to the test as it is typically thought.

"The backwards design of curriculum planning, instruction, and assessment can prove to be extremely beneficial if it is used in a way that stimulates critical thinking by adopting real-world applications. This design can become even more favorable if educators vertically align curriculum from kindergarten through twelfth grade." (Luongo, 56) Herein lies the main trouble with his suggestion. In order for standardized testing to work as he suggests, I would require a complete reworking of our educational system starting at primary school. With the recent recession and subsequent dive in tax receipts, slashing education budgets has become commonplace and even celebrated, with some calling for a complete disbandment of the Federal Department of Education. This would require a great deal of funding to implement at any scale, and would require a coherent bureaucracy to ensure that the standards agreed upon were being followed, as even one link in the chain of this backwards-designed testing-based curriculum could tear down the entire system.

The author ends his article with a defense of teaching to the test as a means of determining educational outcomes, but hedges his words. "In the midst of state assessment, school districts are

jockeying to surpass each other over one thing: test results. Formany, all thatmatters are the results. The truth is that state science assessments will continue to alter the way educators deliver instruction. Every group of students that passes through the school doors brings a different level of understanding, energy, and creativity. Regardless of state mandates, we must deliver a curriculum that is motivating, properly aligned to state frameworks, and applicable to real-life events through the medium of inquiry learning. If we carefully follow this way of thinking, then it is indeed acceptable to teach to the test." What the author is essentially arguing is that teaching to the test as it currently exists is not a fair assessment of educational progress, but instead represents a hit to the system's fostering of creativity, but that with a few changes, the system of standardized testing could be an extremely valuable tool. I believe this to be a well-thought out assessment of the situation.

The second piece of literature I will be reviewing is Beyond Standardized Testing by Doug A. Archbald and Fred M. Newmann. This was a book written at the peak of the movement toward outcome-based education in the late 1980s, and examines the nature of testing and how best to implement it. I chose this piece of literature because it provides a snapshot of how it was thought testing would be handled in the future, and examines the issue at length without seeing the consequences of the system that was implemented.

The book's opening point is that testing should not be thought to be a 'one size fits all' program, as is currently the case.

"It is important to distinguish among the purposes of educational assessment. The collection of informatino for one purpose will not necessarily serve another. For example, standardized tests of general achievement such as the SATs were designed to give information about sudents most likely to succeed in college, not to indicate the effect of school on student achievement or what students, teachers, or schools might do to improve" (Archbald, 7) This would prove to be nearly prophetic. Across the world, tests have borrowed heavily from the SAT and ACT college entrance exams, as there has been a shift toward secondary education as a preparation for traditional colleges and Universities, rather than a liberal-arts focus on preparing well-balanced, educated students. The authors also argue that standardized education, as it exists, does not provide an accurate assessment of a student's whole academic achievement.

"Demonstrations of disciplined inquiry are most meaningful when achievement has aesthetic or utilitarian value apart from determining the competence of the learner. When people write letters, news articles, insurance claims, poems; when they speak a foreign language; when they develop blueprints; when they create a painting, a piece of music, or build a stereo cabinet, they demonstrate achievements that have a special value missing in tasks contrived only for the purpose of assessing knowledge (such as spelling quizzes, laboratory exercises, or typical final exams). (Archbald, 12)

The third piece of literature that I will be reviewing examines how standardized testing is handled in the United States, and is an overall look at the No Child Left Behind Act, which governs how standardized testing is handled in the United States today. It is called No Child Left Behind by Debra Gingerich.

The paper's main focus is the increased accountability and control of the federal government over the handling of state's standardized testing programs. It begins by describing several programs which would establish oversight of programs which had largely operated independently, such as ESL. "By this school year, states must ensure that districts administer an English test to all students with limited English proficiency. This test will measure oral language, reading, and writing skills in English." (Gingerich, 1) Prior to this, the only real nationwide testing that took place was based in math and science, as carry-overs from their Cold-War focus. Never before had the federal government taken such a strong stake in individual schools, and that involvement did not stop there.

"If a school continued to not meet AYP for two consecutive years after being defined as needing improvement, it experiences corrective action, which may include implementing new curriculum or replacing staff. Finally, if it is still in need of improvement after one year of corrective action ... the school district must start creating a plan for governance restructuring. This may include a state takeover ..." (Gingerich, 2) For the first time in American History, the federal government would have the authority to close down and restructure schools which they deem to be underachieving. This represents a step in a different direction from the direction toward the removal of the Department of Education in the mid-to-late 1980s by the Conservative movement. Whether or not this could be seen as different actions in the same vein, we cannot be sure.

The fourth piece of literature I will be reviewing is Few States Meeting Goals of NCLB for English-Learners by Mary Ann Zahn. This article delves further into the question of English learners in particular, and what it found was fairly astounding. "Only 11 states met their accountability goals for English-language learners under the No Child Left Behind Act in the 2007-08 school year, concludes a study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education. " (Zahn, 1) Indeed, it seemed that, even 6 years into the controversial program, there was almost no improvement in that arena. This displays a fairly clear deficit in either the understanding of the program by individual schools, or a lack of support in achieving the goals the legislation set forth. In fact, it seems the legislation was having the opposite effect.

As the legislation tested based on the student's academic grade-level, the schools simply started marking-down the grade level of individual students who would jepoardize the test scores. "Ms. Leos said she's concerned about information in the report that shows states have continually changed the cutoff scores they use to determine language or academic-content proficiency, the definitions of cohorts of students, and other key factors in their accountability systems. If the system is flexible and moving, there is really no way to see if ells are achieving or hot," she said. " (Zahn, 2) This displays that the accountability mechanisms in place simply are not working, according to the article.

The final piece of literature I will be reviewing is Never Say No by Susan Black. This article focuses on the the needs of sub-poverty students, and how parental involvement is especially important for their success in education. She begins the article by giving a case study of the Robert L. Ford NASA Explorer School, which is a charter school located in a poverty-stricken factory town. She details the turnaround of this school, and how it was done within the framework of the No Child Left Behind act. The school's success has largely been attributed to its focus on parental involvement.

"Rose attributes the project's success to home visits that focus on the parent as the 'expert on the child' and the teacher as the 'expert in the classroom.' She often reminds teachers and school leaders that 'parents don't care about what you know until they know that you care.'" This focus on parental involvement has turned the school around, and it now has some of the highest scores in the nation in standardized testing, in spite of the challenge inherent in educating students who have difficulty speaking English.

I have made several findings related to this research, and I will begin with the finding that the costs of standardized testing were unexpected. I am not referring to the direct financial cost of testing, though that was not a low sum. More I am referring to the burden that it has placed on individual schools. As testing was made more and more mandatory, they were forced to completely shift around what had been decades of stable curricula. New books had to be purchased, teachers with years of tenure and experience had to be retrained in new methods, and the entire infrastructure of student-teacher relations had to be reworked. Whereas the report card had been the main way that teachers communicated the success of students to their parents, the new legislation mandated direct parental involvement in school. This meant paying teachers for their time during conferences with the parents, setting up times for the school to be open so that they might communicate, and openly channels of communication that had previously been unused, such as email and message boards.

This also meant they had to put resources and effort into changing the perceptions of parents as to their role in their child's education. Spreading awareness of these new requirements, at least initially, took those resources from the education of the children themselves, and in an economy and environment where education was often the first place to receive budgetary cuts, this meant previously unheard-of financial burden for the individual schools. This, combined with Congress's lack of action in funding programs to improve schools which are did not perform at satisfactory levels led to school closures. This even further increased the problems of classroom overcrowding, which has been cited as one of the chief obstacles toward reading proficiency later in life.

The second finding I made was that the wording of questions and the sources of the test had significant impact on outcomes, rivaling even the preparedness of the students. This is especially noticeable in the arena of students who are learning with English as a second language. Only eleven states, as of 2007-2008, had reached a level of proficiency that was demanded of the No Child Left Behind act, and that was gauged almost exclusively through standardized testing. On the other hand, in tests given by people, where the questions can be re-explained in different language, the outcomes have been much higher. This indicates that the words and language used can have a profound effect on outcomes.

The third finding was that many standardized tests have found to have significant cultural bias after they were used for many years. The most glaring example of this is the SAT examination. Several years ago, the board which administers the test did an internal study which showed that, independent of academic level, Caucasian students outperformed minority students by a significant margin. The panel which administered the study made some revisions to the test, and since then individual states have mandated that such test-makers make an effort to make their tests as culturaly neutral as possible. This culminated in the recent Supreme Court Decision involving the delaying of promotion of Caucasian firefighters because too few firefighters of African-American and Latino background were able to pass the test.

Through this paper, the benefits of standardized testing cannot be argued. There is simply no other way to judge the outcomes of any large-scale education system without it. It has been used for thousands of years, and that is because it is the best way to study whether or not students are learning from any given academic program. Its standardized nature allows for easy comparisons, and gives the data used a flexibility that allows for studies to be carried out easily and effectively.

On the other hand, the way standardized testing is currently carried out in the United States is not particularly effective. Schools are being punished for low test scores without being given the tools to improve their schools and classrooms because of issues of fiscal restraint. The issue of teaching to the test also undermines the credibility of the education system, as it becomes more about memorization of facts and less about well-rounded learning, and understanding of higher concepts. In addition, it can be shown that the tests currently used can represent a degree of cultural insensitivity that favors students from middle and upper class Caucasian backgrounds over other students.

The answer, as it usually is, is going to be somewhere in the middle. Standardized testing should be used to judge outcomes, but not as curricula currently exist. In a time of budgetary crunch, schools simply cannot afford to rebuild their foundations and infrastructure to meet ever-growing community standards. Education needs to be made a political and social priority, as so much of the future relies on it. As long as budges continue to be cut and the funding available to schools continues to be drawn back, it is simply not feasible to expect higher and higher levels of achievement from schools without expecting underhanded tactics such as scaling back the grade-level of underachievers, encouraging low-achieving students to drop out, or even all-out falsification of test scores. This cannot be blamed solely on No Child Left Behind or the level of community standards that it represents, but it does foster an environment that makes those things likely.

I believe if schools were given the funding to rebuild from the ground up and focus on building a curriculum in all fields which is testable but still represents a well-rounded liberal-arts education, then it is the wisest course of action to take. Until that time, however, it is simply unrealistic to think that we are receiving a true picture of our students' academic achievement.

In conclusion, though there are many sides to this debate, there are certain realities that cannot be ignored. There must be some way to gauge the progress of a student's education. There must be a way to determine how funding should be allocated among schools in a system as large as the United States Department of Education. But this must be tempered with an understanding that all students learn differently, and that without individual attention, many of them will not succeed. What is needed is a new system of education, built from the ground up. Such a system would need to be well funded, and given a certain level of freedom to develop its own set of curricula. Under these conditions, standardized testing as a way to test educational outcomes is not only fair, it is also preferable to other sorts of testing.

Longo, C. (2010). Fostering Creativity or Teaching to the Test? Implications of State Testing on the Delivery of Science Instruction. Clearing House, 83(2), 54-57. doi:10.1080/00098650903505399.

The author, Christopher Longo, examines data from the United States Department of education and parallel state bodies and examines the use of standardized testing in science classes. His hypothesis that it would have a positive effect in the testing of educational outcomes was confirmed, though it was tempered by the need to teach to the test.

Archbald, Doug A; Newmann, Fred M (1988) Beyond Standardized Testing: Assessing Authentic Academic Achievement in the Secondary School. National Center on Effective Secondary Schools, madison, WI

The authors examine How they believe standardized testing will look in the future, and perceived problems with using it as a method of educational testing.

Zehr, Mary Ann (2010) Few States Meeting Goals of NCLB for English-Learners. Education Week, Vol 29, Issue 32, p10

The author examines how No Child Left Behind handles those who do not speak English as a first language, and whether or not it is effective, and how those results match up with overall test scores for schools with high populations of English as a second language learners.

Gingerich, Debra (2003) No Child Left Behind. Research for Better Schools, Volume VI, Number 2, p 12-24.

The author gives a review of No Child Left Behind, and examines the requirements in accountability and testing that are established by the far-reaching law.

Black, S. (2010). Never Say No. American School Board Journal, 197(5), 39-40. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

This article is an examination of alternate methods of establishing academic performance, with a focus on parental involvement fulfilling the requirement of community standards in the place of standardized education.