Are Standardized Tests Really Effective Anymore?

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Are Standardized Tests Really Effective Anymore?
One of the debates that are raising a lot of controversy in the education sector is the relevance of standardized tests. Critics of standardized tests argue that the focus on testing not only denies students much valuable learning time, but also places unwarranted emphasis on meaningless test scores that interferes with teachers’ performance assessments. They further claim that teachers’ concerns about the performance of students in the tests compels them to spend more time teaching to the test instead of directing students’ attention toward long term educational activities and strategies that enhance creative learning. One reason they cite is that standardized scores tend to measure what learners know or are expected to know at a given time, rather than their overall competencies. However, this argument is one-sided as it fails to take into consideration the objectives that standardized tests are intended to achieve. As a measure of learners’ progress, standardized tests help educators and policy makers to determine whether the education system is meeting students’ learning needs. In addition, standardized testing is one way of holding the education system accountable by evaluating learners’ progress. Moreover, standardized tests allow teachers to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching methods in light of students’ test scores. In this regard, this essay argues that standardized tests play an important role in assessing learners’ progress, encouraging accountability in the education system, and evaluating the effectiveness of teaching approaches.
Standardized testing has become a prominent feature in the American school system following the implementation of the No Child Left Behind program. One of the learning situations that the policy and its testing-intensive approach aimed to address was declining student performances at grade level (Pollard 2002). Standardized testing puts pressure on teachers to cover the essential syllabus material that learners are supposed to learn in a given grade. The idea of standardization means that teachers’ work is measured against national standards, which ensures that all learners get quality education. For instance, some states or districts may administer poorly designed tests that exaggerate learners’ progress, such as where only simple and basic concepts are tested. By subjecting learners to a standard test, it is possible to identify regions that are lagging behind in terms of quality (Popham 8). One of the aims of standardized tests, therefore, is to ensure that the education system does not get a free pass even when teaching standards are low. By measuring learners’ performance in test scores, parents and other stakeholders are able to make inferences on whether teachers are doing their job properly. In this light, standardizes tests may also be viewed as an assessment of the teachers’ work and not just a way of testing learners’ level of content mastery. While teachers’ assessments provide an alternative measure of learners’ progress, their objectivity is compromised by the fact that the teacher is giving a report card about what his or her teaching has achieved in the students (Koretz 19). Accordingly, in the absence of a better alternative, standardized tests provide an objective assessment of the impact of teachers’ work in learners.
Teaching is a result-oriented process whereby teachers want to see positive change in learners. Standardized tests help teachers, parents, and policy makers to determine whether schooling is achieving the desired goals, one of which is to impart knowledge and skills in learners. At the same time, teachers use different approaches to deliver learning activities and guide classroom learning. As a profession guided by evidence-based practices, test scores provide a yardstick for measuring the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of different teaching methods employed by teachers (Johnson 20). Comparison of learners’ test scores under different teaching approaches enable teachers to identify the most effective and appropriate methods for teaching various concepts and skill/knowledge areas. Similarly, test scores provide teachers with the opportunity to compare the effectiveness of their teaching approaches with those of their counterparts in various states or districts. They can use this knowledge to refine their own methods to suit learners’ needs and improve their (learners) rate of learning and academic performance.
Learners are endowed with different learning abilities. Consequently, there are slow learners and fast learners. Classroom assessment offers teachers the opportunity to identify learners who are lagging behind and are in need of additional help (Mayer 520). However, classroom assessment alone may not provide a true picture of every learner’s progress largely because oftentimes learning tends to be collective, that is, the teacher focuses on teaching a group of learners and not individual learners. While the latter approach is ideal, it may not be practical due to resource and time constraints, especially in classes with a big teacher-student ration. At the same time, group work may give a false impression in cases where slow learners are grouped together with bright students to complete assignments. Similarly, students who benefits from the guidance of their parents in completing homework assignments may perform better than their actual competence can achieve. Under such circumstances, teachers may me mislead by the performance of learners in class assignments and other assessment tests in which learners may benefit from external assistance. Standardized tests allow teachers to measure individual learners’ level of understanding and mastery of the syllabus content. This in turn helps teachers to identify learners who may need additional help or special attention during classroom instruction (Johnson 20). In addition, standardized tests allow teachers to identify specific areas in a given subject that learners have not mastered well. For example, mathematics comprises of various skill areas such as algebra, geometry, and computation. Well-designed standard tests allow teachers to assess the learners’ level of knowledge in these areas in light of their test scores, and determine which topics should be revisited.
One argument that critics of standardized tests advance is that they are norm-referenced because they compare a student’s performance with that of others, as opposed to a given criteria or standard. However, this reasoning ignores the competitive nature of education. From the moment a child enters the school system, he or she embarks on an intelligence/ability competition with other learners throughout the schooling duration, up to the time one graduate from university. Understood this way, standardized tests provide an incentive for learners to work hard and be f...