EDITORIAL: The value of standardized testing needs to be evaluated
Before Thanksgiving, the Pennsylvania Department of Education announced the results of three statewide student assessment tests, and the results were not so bad.
Proficiency rates crept up from or stayed near the results from the year before. Math proficiency moved up to 40% from 38%, and science proficiency inched up to 59.2% from 58.9%. However, English language arts proficiency went down slightly, from 54.5% to 53.9%. Schools are still trying to get scores up to where they were before the pandemic, and Secretary of Education Dr. Khalid N. Mumin expressed confidence that “participation and achievement will continue to improve and give students new ways to chart their own course.”
Anyone who graduated from high school in the 20th century has never experienced the regimen of standardized testing today’s students are subjected to. It started in the administration of President George W. Bush in 2001 with the No Child Left Behind Act. That has since been supplanted by the Every Student Succeeds Act, which gives states more flexibility when it comes to assessments, but still requires the states to have them. If Pennsylvania decided to put the kibosh on standardized testing, it would run the risk of losing $600 million every year in federal funding for education.
Earlier this year, the administration of Gov. Josh Shapiro announced it was making changes to the assessments given to students. Officials say the changes will save students’ time, reduce the high levels of stress surrounding the tests and allow teachers to spend more time teaching. These include implementing online testing over the next couple of years rather than the traditional pencil-and-paper form, and changing the types of questions. According to the administration, the changes will save Pennsylvania’s taxpayers $6.5 million every year, save more than 85 million printed pages, and allow schools to get results more quickly.
Making these changes sounds laudable, particularly if they make life a little easier and less expensive for everyone. But, in the long term, the role of standardized testing in education needs to be constantly scrutinized to ensure that they actually help students learn.
Some educators have expressed doubts. They say that such measurements as teacher turnover, graduation rates and school climate surveys are a better way to look at whether students are learning. A survey conducted in 2023 by Education Week found that just 25% of the 870 teachers and administrators who responded believed that tests mandated by their state were useful, and almost half said they felt even more pressure than they did before COVID-19 to make sure their students get good scores.
Margaret Pastor, a principal at a Maryland elementary school, wrote in Education Week in 2019, “A lot of classroom time is dedicated to preparing for these tests and giving them. Results are affected by dozens of variables that we can’t control: illness, hunger, sleep deprivation, unfamiliar forms of a test, limited command of English.”
Pastor added, “Teachers – good teachers, who are with students day after day through all the variables of learning – are far more likely to know not only what a student can do but also how to increase his learning. If we focused on that and worked to build our strength as identifiers and promoters of children’s learning, we could have a real impact.”
And having that “real impact” will matter more in the long run than any standardized test scores.