In his list of top education events of the century, longtime editor Ben Brodinksy reminds us of the democratic roots of standardized testing (1999). During World War I, the U.S. army used tests to classify soldiers for military duties. Schools soon adopted standardized tests as a way to assign appropriate tasks to students. After scholars Lewis Terman and Edward Thorndike invented the Intelligence Quotient, no longer would birth and wealth be the sole determiners for educational opportunity, the reasoning went. The aptitude test was born. Testing became a science—and a mass industry.
Test makers later designed achievement tests to compare students' knowledge and skills with those of students nationally and internationally. And today, many of our new standards-based tests compare students against a benchmark.
For some time now, educators have debated whether aptitude tests really measure intelligence and whether achievement tests really test what the children have been taught. We've criticized tests for favoring the advantaged and for being culturally irrelevant to children of color. A growing area of contention is the use of standardized achievement testing to assess the quality of schools and the teaching at those schools. And a big concern today is whether tests really matter in the long run, that is, do they contribute to a child's education—teach something beyond how to take a test?
But educators have a love-hate relationship with tests, as does the general public. We abhor "teaching to the test," but devour the statistics that prove our children are above average or our schools are at the top of the list. The basic goals of testing have multiplied and sometimes conflict with one another. Do we want to use tests to measure accountability of schools, to tell parents how students compare with their peers, or to guide instruction? Is it possible to use the same test to do all three?
One thing for sure: Test taking and test making are on the upswing. By 2000, 49 states will administer their own statewide standards tests (Olson, 1999). The trend is to add more subjects and more grade levels to the tests, to test more often, and to attach higher stakes to the results. This issue of Educational Leadership probes some appropriate and inappropriate ways of using standards and assessments.
W. James Popham (p. 8) starts off with a warning to educators and the public: Know thy test. Achievement tests are designed to eliminate items that most students will answer correctly, he notes. Thus, "To evaluate teachers' instructional effectiveness by using assessment tools that deliberately avoid important content is fundamentally foolish."
He urges that educators help parents and policymakers understand the shortcomings of standardized tests and provide more appropriate evidence of accountability. He writes, Provide other credible evidence that can be used to ascertain the quality of schools. Carefully collected, nonpartisan evidence regarding teachers' pre-test-to-post-test promotion of undeniably important skills or knowledge just might do the trick.
Writing in a policy brief for CRESST, Robert L. Linn (1999) reminds us of the advantages of standardized tests. Compared with other reforms like class size reduction or improved teacher training, he notes, tests are inexpensive. Test results are highly visible and draw media attention. And testing can create changes in curriculum and instruction that otherwise are not easy to legislate. "Unfortunately, when tests are used to make major decisions about school and students," he writes, "these attractive features frequently result in unexpected problems. Test results may be incomplete or misleading, resulting in poor policy decisions."
Among his suggestions for policymakers: Set standards that are high, but attainable. . . . Don't put all of the weight on a single test when making important decisions about students and schools. . . . Evaluate not only the hoped for positive effects of standards-based assessment, but also the unintended negative effects of the testing system. . . . And finally, provide all children with the teachers and resources they need to reach our high expectations. This means improving the educational system as a whole, not just more testing or new testing systems.
