Authored on 2007-08-12 08:54:09 -0800

I’ve never worked, or been a part of an education system, where standardized testing did not exist. I wrote the tests in grade 12. I now teach the courses that have the tests. I’ve been hired to mark exams and develop questions. There are some advantages to standardized testing. And there are disadvantages.

The strange thing is that those who defend it or criticize it both use the same reason: they want to do what is best for the students.

As I see it, testing is good for the students because it provides a baseline of skills. It clarifies what needs to be learned, understood, and able to do. It gets bad when the results are used to put pressure on schools and teachers to have “good” results. Because learning depends on the mixture of learner and teacher, this pressure gets rerouted from improving that relationship to “changing the system” so that the results look better.

A difficulty that I’m learning to deal with is counseling students into a proper education path. There is the balance of working with the student, the parents, and the teachers to make sure the student is taking the courses they need, the courses they can be successful in, and the courses that will challenge them. This is difficult enough without the added pressure of results.

Two stories came to me from Slashdot about the pressure of standardized testing on math programming. The UK is facing a problem where students are not taking math courses because of perceived difficulty. The universities are noticing the choices in that fewer students are ready for their programs. The articles does not clarify whether this is self-selection by the students or pressure from the system but the students worried about failing. This also is happening in Australia. In this article it seems clear that there is pressure from the school for the sake of results.

In helping students decide which courses to take many factors are taken into account. I admit that in some choices, there is a chance of failure. Again, many factors affect a particular student’s success – and some can be out of their control. So, given this variability, analyzing test results must be kept into context. The two articles provide evidence that my fears about testing are true. Is there evidence that testing is helping schools?

It was surprising when I was reminded of Jaime Escalante, the famous math teacher of Stand and Deliver. His success in teaching math (as measured by standardized testing) came from strong educational practices:

pipelining – students’ skills were built up through proper programming and design of courses
tutoring – help with learning was provided for the students
open enrollment – students were allowed to challenge the programs (and some did fail)
Once the focus went away from the direct focus on teaching the students the program failed