The Correct Answer is d.) We Should Stop It With All the Standardized Testing
Let's focus instead on creating more intellectually-stimulating school environments
My sixth-grade daughter spent Teacher Appreciation Week taking standardized tests. The Friday before last, she practiced taking a test in math class. On Tuesday, she took a four-part math test that lasted all day. Wednesday and Thursday were consumed by English and reading tests. Needless to say, there hasn’t been a whole lot of learning going on this past week.
That wouldn’t be that big of a deal if these were the only standardized tests my daughter took all year, but she takes a lot of them. The tests she took this week are tests the state of Maryland requires students to complete in order to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, the Obama-era legislation that superseded George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law. Three times a year, she will also spend 2-3 math and 2-3 English periods taking a test that measures her individual growth in those subjects. (She took the third math test two weeks ago—notice how chopped-up her math instruction has been over the past couple weeks—and she’ll take the third English test sometime before Memorial Day.) Last year in fifth grade, she took three standardized-test-like reading assessments that took two ninety-minute periods to administer, along with a standardized science test. The weird thing about those reading tests was that she had to take them even though they were not part of the reading curriculum used by her school. If she was an ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) student, she would also take a standardized ESOL test.
I’ve never been a fan of standardized testing in schools. (Actually, who is?) Granted, I understand how standardized testing can be useful: Sometimes you need to get a sense for whether your school is keeping pace with other schools, if your students are slipping when it comes to a particular academic skill, or if your valedictorian is as valedictory as you think. But anyone who has ever administered or reviewed the results of a standardized test understands they have a rather limited utility. It doesn’t seem right to place an excessive amount of weight on any one result, but once those results are compiled in order to identify any significant long-term or group trends, educators are usually pretty cautious about drawing any definitive conclusions from them given all the variables that could be shaping those results.
For me, though, the problem with standardized testing is that while they might be good at figuring out what students know and if students are adept at basic skills, they’re not very good at assessing how well a student thinks, which is the more elusive academic skill schools ought to be nurturing. There’s a time and place in schools for teaching basic, objective knowledge; students should know their math facts, for instance, or that Abraham Lincoln was president during the Civil War. Students need foundational skills and knowledge to succeed academically and become more sophisticated thinkers.
But mastery of objective knowledge isn’t the main thing most teachers are trying to accomplish. What they’re really aiming for on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour basis is that moment when the lightbulb lights up over a student’s head: When something in a student’s brain clicks and he or she comprehends something at a deeper level, begins weighing ideas against each other, grows more curious about the way the world works, or uses his or her reason and judgment to figure something out. That requires getting students to build intellectual habits and flex their intellectual muscles. Contrary to popular belief, teaching isn’t an input/output thing; it’s more about building and expanding that cranial processor so it can handle all sorts of increasingly complicated tasks.
A standardized test will likely require students to utilize some of these intellectual habits, but standardized tests aren’t really designed to measure these higher order skills. Defenders of standardized testing would likely disagree. They would insist evidence of intellectual growth is baked into standardized test scores, since students who do better on tests will have had more “a-ha” moments, which good schools and good teachers will have presumably facilitated.
I won’t claim that’s necessarily untrue. Instead, I would argue that when education officials and policymakers emphasize standardized tests and outcome-oriented instruction over process-based instructional models, they often end up creating less intellectually stimulating educational settings for their students. The United States seemed to veer in that direction twenty years ago following the passage of No Child Left Behind, which was built around a regimen of high-stakes testing in math and reading. With so much riding on those tests, school districts pared back science, social studies, and arts instruction and turned to “teacher-proof” math and reading curricula that taught to the test. It was a “back to basics” movement and an understandable one at that if policymakers had concluded American students lacked the basic reading and math skills necessary to succeed in and beyond school. But a lot is lost when education is reduced to its “basic” elements. Rather than expand a student’s intellectual horizons, an educational system built around standardized testing is more likely to narrow them.
For these reasons, I am skeptical an educational program constructed around standardized testing improves academic performance. I must admit, national math scores did go up following the passage of No Child Left Behind, but there was also a movement at that time to change the way math was taught in elementary schools, which on its own could account for improved scores. Still, there are more effective ways to improve academic performance than relying on high stakes testing. Support programs that connect new teachers with mentors in the profession and that allow teachers to share successful and innovative teaching strategies with one another would improve the quality of instruction in our schools. Improving educational outcomes also requires investing in social programs that can bring socioeconomic stability to the lives of our children. Address the issue of poverty in the United States and we will address many of the problems we encounter in our educational system.
There are other problems associated with standardized testing as well. I personally question their predictive utility, as I suspect most teachers would be able to guess how well their students would do on a standardized test based on their students’ day-to-day classroom performance. Given the option, I’d be more inclined to follow a teacher’s academic recommendations when it comes to planning my daughter’s academic program than the results of a one-off standardized test. As I alluded to earlier, standardized testing disrupts the flow of teaching; my daughter, for instance, is in a part of the school year now when she’ll be taking standardized tests on a near-weekly basis. Also, kids hate taking them. School isn’t all fun and games, but taking a standardized test certainly isn’t enjoyable, with most kids finding them either stressful, pointless, or demoralizing. Finally, parents and teachers would likely agree that schoolchildren are over-tested and that school time could be used more productively.
Thankfully, the 2015 bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) for the most part ended the era of high stakes testing by shifting the federal government’s role in holding schools accountable for student performance to the states. Yet ESSA still requires states to administer a yearly standardized test to 3rd-8th and 11th grade students. States and local school districts often administer their own standardized tests independent of ESSA’s requirements as well.
When the pandemic hit, I figured that would have ended the era of standardized testing, as there was very little about the educational environment that was “standard” enough to produce reliable results at that time. Having skipped a test or two, I guessed policymakers and school administrators would have realized they certainly didn’t miss giving those tests, either. Yet despite constant warnings about learning loss during the pandemic, administrators still insisted students take those tests, which was odd because a.) everyone knew students weren’t going to do well on them and why; b.) testing contributed to learning loss because test-taking took up instructional time; and c.) the results would forever be flagged as pandemic-era outliers.
So my daughter continues to take standardized tests, school administrators continue to collect and evaluate the data that justify the existence of their positions, and testing companies continue to rake in millions of dollars as they help school districts meet this government mandate. There aren’t many who will go out of their way to defend standardized testing, but there are certainly well-placed and well-monied interests invested in its perpetuation. But as so many students, parents, and educators know, it’s past time to put a stop to all this testing and double down on policies that would directly enhance teaching and learning in our schools.
Signals and Noise
Following up on my recent article about gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas received from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow:
ProPublica reports Crow also paid private school tuition for the son of Thomas’s nephew, whom Thomas was raising as his son. A lawyer who had previously represented Thomas’s wife Ginni confirmed Crow funded two-years worth of tuition, which would have cost roughly $100,000. Earlier reporting found Crow had lavished Thomas with vacation gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and purchased and improved the home of Thomas’s mother, who continues to live in the house rent-free. Crow defends the spending as nothing more than the generosity of a friend.
The Washington Post reports conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo from 2011 through 2012 used a non-profit he advised to pay $80,000 to a consulting firm operated by Thomas’s wife Ginni. He specifically noted he wanted to “give” this money to Ginni Thomas but specified it was to be done without mentioning Ginni’s name to protect her privacy. It is unclear what services Ginni Thomas provided in exchange for these payments. ALSO of interest: “How Does Leonard Leo Hide All His Right-Wing Dark Money? Here’s One Way” by Dan Petegorsky of Common Dreams
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen estimates the United States could default on its debt as soon as June 1, necessitating a debt ceiling increase by that date.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated Senate Republicans want nothing to do with negotiating a way out of the debt ceiling impasse.
Punchbowl News has a SWOT analysis of the debt ceiling standoff.
Moderate House Republicans are worried their more conservative colleagues won’t vote to raise the debt ceiling even if McCarthy cuts a deal with Biden.
Paul Kane of the Washington Post writes there is very little evidence voters evaluate candidates based on their debt ceiling votes or that such votes are salient political issues.
Carl Hulse of the New York Times found Democrats have snuck a bill through the House that could serve as a vehicle for a discharge petition to raise the debt ceiling. A discharge petition is a procedure that allows a majority of House members to bring a bill directly to the floor for a vote. For a discharge petition to work, Democrats would need five Republican House members to sign-on to their plan.
Don Trump has threatened to seize the endowments of universities with affirmative action policies.
Philip Bump of the Washington Post explains why it’s such a bad idea for CNN to host a town hall meeting with Trump this week.
Sally Goldenberg and Meredith McGraw of Politco note Trump’s 2024 campaign is much more disciplined than during his previous two runs.
OK, but…an ad Trump is running decrying the state of America during Biden’s presidency uses two pictures (of a burning police car and migrants crossing the Rio Grande) from 2020, when Trump was president.
During Trump’s deposition in the rape and defamation case brought against him by E. Jean Carroll, Trump responded to his comments on the Access Hollywood “Grab them by the pussy” tape that “stars” like him had “unfortunately or fortunately” been allowed to sexually assault women in the past.
Insider has a list of the 26 women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
Four members of the Proud Boys, including its leader, were found guilty of seditious conspiracy connected to the 1/6 Capitol riot. Prosecutors will ask for sentences of 10-25 years. In another case, a rioter who attacked officers with a folding chair and pepper spray was sentenced to 14 years in prison. ALSO: A former FBI agent who called police officers Nazis and urged rioters to kill law enforcement officials during the Capitol riot has been charged with four misdemeanors for his actions on 1/6.
Ron DeSantis’s election fraud police force has only managed to make two dozen arrests, resulting so far in six dismissals, five plea deals, and one split verdict. As Lori Rozsa of the Washington Post writes, in some cases, the lives of those charged have been turned upside down due to the cost of clearing their name in court. The small number of prosecutions is regarded as a sign Florida’s electoral system is sound. Yet DeSantis still wants to triple the department’s budget from $1.2 million to $3.1 million.
Democratic Rep. Colin Allred is set to challenge Republican Sen. “Teddy Cancun” Cruz in 2024. From Allred’s announcement video: “I took off my jacket and got ready to take on anyone who came through that door. Ted Cruz? He cheered on the mob… then hid in the supply closet.”
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case next term that will look at the Chevron doctrine, a landmark 40-year-old Supreme Court precedent that grants federal agencies deference when enforcing a statute Congress has left ambiguous.
The federal government has sued two hospitals that refused to grant a woman an emergency abortion to end a pregnancy that endangered her life.
The Republican supermajority in the North Carolina legislature as passed a 12-week ban on abortion. According to Avi Bajpai and Lars Dolder of the Raleigh News & Observer, “Under current law, abortions are allowed up until 20 weeks of gestation. The GOP proposal would bring that down to 12 weeks with exceptions up to 20 weeks for rape and incest, up to 24 weeks for ‘life-limiting’ fetal anomalies, and without limit if a physician determines that the mother’s life is in danger due to a medical emergency.” Democrats stand opposed to the legislation. It will be interesting to follow reaction to this law among Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters.
Tessa Stuart of Rolling Stone looks at the new Republican-initiated movement to end no-fault divorce, two-thirds of which are initiated by women. (“There isn’t a huge mystery behind the campaign: Like the crusades against abortion and contraception, making it more difficult to leave an unhappy marriage is about control.”)
The U.S. is on a record pace this year when it comes to mass shootings.
In Texas this past week:
A man shot and killed five people, including an eight-year-old boy, after he was asked by his neighbors to quit firing his gun because their baby was trying to sleep.
A college baseball player standing near his team’s bullpen was struck by a stray bullet during a game.
At least nine people were killed when a shooter opened fire at a Dallas-area outlet mall.
In case you missed my article from last week:
Turnout in the 2022 midterms dropped 4 points compared to 2018, with Black turnout dropping a whopping 10 points.
Mexico and the United States have come to an agreement to tighten immigration policies at the border. Biden is also sending troops to the border, which David Graham of The Atlantic thinks is a bad idea. So does Lindsey “Goose” Graham, who had to be reminded Donald Trump did the same thing. (The difference, according to Graham: “When Donald Trump did something, it worked.”)
The Fed raised interest rates a quarter of a point to 5.25%. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell seemed to signal future rate hikes were unlikely.
Another bank failed this week. First Republic Bank, which catered to wealthy clients on the coast, has been limping along since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Its failure is the second largest bank failure in US history. JP Morgan has taken over its operations. Meanwhile, a group of small regional banks is teetering on collapse even though their financial positions are stronger than those of the banks that have failed. Investor panic threatens to undermine their standing.
Paul Hannon of the Wall Street Journal asks why inflation has been so sticky. His answer: Corporations are using the opportunity to boost profit margins.
In bad news for budget hawks and good news for climate hawks, it looks like the Congressional Budget Office was way off in its estimation of how much the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits for clean energy and green manufacturing will cost the country. The CBO originally estimated $270 billion over a decade, but the the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation thinks it will be closer to $468 billion. Goldman Sachs recently estimated it could cost over $1.2 trillion while promoting $1.5 trillion in economic growth. That would blow a medium-sized hole in the budget, but it’s likely climate change would do that on its own.
The Labor Department found over 300 children—including two ten-year-olds— working at McDonald’s restaurants in Kentucky and three other states. For more on the recent push to rollback child labor laws, see Rachel Cohen’s article at Vox.
The population of college-aged Americans is about to crater, which Kevin Carey of Vox writes will endanger small colleges throughout the United States.
COVID infections have been in a lull recently. Katherine Wu of The Atlantic looks at whether we can expect any new waves in the near future.
The so-called “Godfather of AI” has quit his job at Google, fearful that tech companies are racing to advance a technology that could do serious harm to humanity.
Bobby Allyn of NPR looks at the decline of online news sites and the social media companies that used to promote them, all of which may herald the end of the current iteration of the Internet.
Elon Musk’s beef with NPR is weird.
With the coronation of King Charles III this past week, David Frum of The Atlantic writes about how Brexit has left the UK worse off. By some estimates, Britain is 4% poorer than it was before it left the European Union. One irony Frum points out: As Brexiteers campaigned to keep “Polish plumbers” from invading the UK, the average UK household is now poorer than the average Polish household.
Since I write frequently about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, here are this year’s inductees as announced this week: Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, George Michael, Willie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine, the Spinners, Chaka Khan (Musical Excellence), Al Kooper (Musical Excellence), Bernie Taupin (Musical Excellence), DJ Kool Herc (Early Influence), Link Wray (Early Influence), and Don Cornelius (Non-performer).