How does standardized testing help

When the effects of structural problems on student learning are ignored, teachers and school boards are blamed for any deficiencies in student performance. Racism ends up pointing a finger at Black education leaders, teachers, and kids for disparities that result from systemic racism.

States have historically found ways to starve majority-Black and -Brown districts of the resources they need to thrive. Segregation and school financing systems that reinforce segregated housing arrangements reflect the application of racist attitudes about Black people and communities that show up in outcomes. And since No Child Left Behind ushered in an era of accountability in , those accountability systems have largely failed to address those sources of inequality.

Black districts in particular have felt as much pain from testing as from the negative conditions that surround schooling. Amid a pandemic, testing is a necessary inconvenience to help us understand how we can better address structural racism and other root causes of academic disparities.

Brown Center Chalkboard. The Brown Center Chalkboard launched in January as a weekly series of new analyses of policy, research, and practice relevant to U. In July , the Chalkboard was re-launched as a Brookings blog in order to offer more frequent, timely, and diverse content. This is one of the main factors cited by standardized testing critics as contributing to out-of-character scores.

If you are concerned about the performance of your child, there are ways to improve — the easiest of which is to hire a tutor. A tutor can help students develop a test-taking strategy, manage their time, and improve critical thinking skills. This will give him or her a better idea of how to best prepare for a test. Are they helping or hindering? Should they stay or should they go? Standardized tests fail to account for students who learn and demonstrate academic proficiency in different ways.

For example, a student who struggles to answer a multiple-choice question about grammar or punctuation may be an excellent writer. By placing emphasis on reading, writing, and mathematics, standardized tests have devalued instruction in areas such as the arts, history, and electives. Standardized tests are thought to be fair because every student takes the same test and evaluations are largely objective, but a one-size-fits-all approach to testing is arguably biased because it fails to account for variables such as language deficiencies, learning disabilities, difficult home lives, or varying knowledge of US cultural conventions.

Effects of Standardized Testing on Teachers Teachers as well as students can be challenged by the effects of standardized testing. Teachers have expressed frustration about the time it takes to prepare for and administer tests. Teachers may feel excessive pressure from their schools and administrators to improve their standardized test scores. Standardized tests measure achievement against goals rather than measuring progress. Achievement test scores are commonly assumed to have a strong correlation with teaching effectiveness, a tendency that can place unfair blame on good teachers if scores are low and obscure teaching deficiencies if scores are high.

Alternative Achievement Assessments Critics of standardized testing often point to various forms of performance-based assessments as preferable alternatives. Proponents of standardized testing argue that some kind of examination outside of school curricula—which can vary widely by school district—can help an education system better compare students from very different backgrounds because all these students took the exact same test.

By measuring students against that universal standard, it becomes easier to evaluate and rank them. In the same way that standardized tests provide a standard to measure students, they can also help set larger educational standards for schools across a state or country. If students in particular school districts are struggling to perform at grade level, superintendents and governments know to get involved.

In addition to comparing students against one another or identifying problematic schools or districts, standardized tests can also illustrate student progress over time. Taking the same or similar tests over the years can allow students to indicate measurable improvement. Standardized tests can give students from under-performing high schools a chance to prove that they have mastered ample academic material despite their circumstances.

Because standardized tests are not tied to any one high school curriculum, they can offer an inclusive opportunity for students to highlight their successful performance. Proponents argue that standardized testing can help level the playing field in public education. Finally, while much of the arguing around standardized testing is focused on high school students and younger, the fact is that standardized testing is often a fact of life well beyond secondary school.

Anyone who wants to become a doctor, lawyer, teacher, engineer, actuary, architect, or practitioner of another specialized profession will eventually have to excel at a standardized test.