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standardized testing
After Over 4 Decades of Failure, Time to Ban This High-Stakes Standardized Testing Regime
If these standardized tests were going to work as all their backers claimed, they would have done so by now
Apr 09, 2022
Standardized tests were supposed to be the magic remedy to fix our public schools.
They were supposed to make all students proficient in reading and math.
They were supposed to ensure all students were getting the proper resources.
They were supposed to ensure all teachers were doing their best for their students.
But after more than four decades, standardized tests have not fulfilled a single one of these promises.
In fact, all they've done is make things worse at public schools while creating a lucrative market for testing companies and school privatization concerns.
So why haven't we gotten rid of them?
To answer that question, we have to understand how we got here in the first place - where these kinds of assessments came from in the US and how they became the guiding policy of our public schools.
Standardized testing has been around in this country since the 1920s.
It was the product of the pseudoscientific eugenicist movement that tried to justify white supremacy with bad logic and biased premises.
Psychologists Robert Yerkes and Carl Brigham invented these assessments to justify privileging upper-class whites over lower class immigrants, Blacks and Hispanics. That was always the goal and they tailored their tests to find that result.
From the very start, it had serious consequences for public policy. The results were used to rationalize the forced sterilization of 60,000 to 70,000 people from groups with low test scores, thus preventing them from "polluting" the gene pool.
However, Brigham's greatest claim to fame was the creation of the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) to keep such undesirables out of higher education. These tests were not central to school curriculum and mainly used as gatekeepers with the SAT in particular still in wide use today.
The problem then - as now - is that standardized tests aren't very good assessments. They work okay for really simple things like rudimentary math. However, the more complex a skill you're assessing, the more inadequate the tests. For example, imagine just trying to have a conversation with someone where your only choices of reply were limited to four canned responses. That's a multiple-choice assessment. The result is a testing system that selects against the poor and minorities. At best, it reproduces the economic and racial disparities of society. At worst, it ensures those disparities will continue into the next generation.
That isn't to say the system went unchallenged. By the 1960s, the junk science and leaps of logic behind standardized testing were obvious and people began fighting back in court. Black plaintiffs began winning innumerable lawsuits against the testing industry.
Perhaps the most famous case is Hobson v. Hansen in 1967, which was filed on behalf of a group of Black students in Washington, DC. The court ruled that the policy of using tests to assign students to tracks was racially biased because the tests were standardized to a White, middleclass group.
Nevertheless, just as the tests were beginning to disappear, radical economists like Milton Friedman saw them as an opportunity to push their own personal agenda. More than anything, these extreme capitalists wanted to do away with almost all public services - especially public schools. They hoped the assessments could be repurposed to undermine these institutions and usher in an era of private education through measures like school vouchers.
So in the 1980s, the Reagan administration published "A Nation at Risk," a campfire tale about how America's public schools were failing. Thus, the authors argued we needed standardized testing to make American children competitive in a global marketplace.
However, the report, which examined test scores from the past 20 years, was misleading and full of statistical and mathematical errors.
For instance, it concluded that average student test scores had decreased but didn't take into account that scores had actually increased in every demographic group. It compared two decades worth of test scores, but failed to mention that more students took the test at the end of that period than at the beginning, and many of the newer students were disadvantaged. In other words, it compared test scores between an unrepresentative group at the beginning of the comparison with a more representative group at the end and concluded that these oranges were nothing like the apples they started with. Well, duh.
Most people weren't convinced by the disaster capitalism at work here, but the report marks a significant moment in the standardization movement. In fact, this is really where our modern era began.
Slowly governors and state legislators began drinking the Kool-aide and mandating standardized testing in schools along with corporate-written academic standards the tests were supposed to assess. It wasn't everywhere, but the model for test-and-punish was in place.
It took an additional two decades, until 2001, for President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation to require standardized testing in ALL public schools.
With bipartisan support, Bush tied federal funding of schools to standardized test performance and annual academic progress. And from then on, the die was cast. This policy has been upheld through both Republican and Democratic regimes.
In fact, standardized testing intensified under President Barack Obama and was continued with few changes by Donald Trump and even Joe Biden. Far from changing course, Biden broke a campaign promise to discontinue the tests. Once in office, he thought testing was so important that he forced schools to give the assessments during the Covid-19 pandemic when districts had trouble even keeping school buildings open.
And that brings us to today.
From the 1980s to 2022 we've had wide scale standardized testing in our schools. That's roughly 40 years where the entirety of what is done in public school has been organized around these assessments. They drive the curriculum and are the ultimate benchmark by which success or failure is judged. If this policy was ever going to work, it would have done so by now.
However, it has achieved NONE of its stated goals.
NCLB specifically stated that all children would be proficient in reading and math by 2014. That has not happened. Despite spending billions of dollars on remediation and completely reorganizing our schools around the assessments, test scores have remained mostly static or even decreased.
The law also justified its existence with claims to equity. Somehow taking resources away from districts with low test scores was supposed to increase funding at the neediest schools. Unsurprisingly this did not happen. All it did was further increase the funding gap between rich and poor schools and between wealthy and disadvantaged students.
NCLB also championed the idea that competing for test scores would result in better teachers. However, that didn't happen either. Instead, educators were forced to narrow the curriculum to cover mostly what was assessed, reduce creativity and critical thinking, and teachers who served poor and minority students were even punished for doing so.
If the purpose of standardized testing was all the things the law purported, then it was a decades long failure. It is the policy equivalent of slamming your head into a wall repeatedly and wondering why you aren't moving forward. (And where did this headache come from?)
If, however, the purpose of standardized testing was to fulfill Friedman's privatization dreams, then it was a resounding success. Public schools still persist, but they have been drained, weakened and in many ways subverted.
Look at the evidence.
Standardized testing has grown from a $423 million industry before 2001 to a multi-billion dollar one today. If we add in test prep, new text books, software, and consultancy, that figure easily tops the trillion dollar mark.
Huge corporations make the tests, grade the tests and then sell remediation materials when students fail. It's a huge scam.
But that's not the only business created by this policy. Test and punish opened entirely new markets that hadn't existed before. The emphasis on test scores and the "failing schools" narrative stoked unwarranted distrust in the public school system and a demand for more privatized alternatives.
Chief among these was charter schools.
The first charter school law was passed in 1991 in Minnesota. It allowed for the creation of new schools that would have special agreements (or charters) with states or districts to run without having to abide by all the usual regulations. Thus, the school could go without an elected board, pocket public money as private profit, etc. The bill was quickly copied and spread to legislatures across the country by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
Today, there are charter schools in 43 states and the District of Columbia educating nearly three million students. Charter schools enroll about 6% of the students in the country.
However, charter schools are rife with fraud and malfeasance. For instance, more than a quarter of charter schools close within 5 years of opening. By year 15, roughly 50% of charter schools close. That's not a stable model of public education. It's a get rich quick scheme. And since these types of schools are free from the kinds of regulations, democratic governance and/or transparency that keeps authentic public schools in check, another charter school scandal pops up almost every day.
But let's not forget school vouchers. Before high stakes testing, the idea of using public money to pay for private or parochial schools was widely considered unconstitutional. Now about 4% of US students go to private and parochial schools some of which are funded with school vouchers. This is an option in 32 states and the District of Columbia, and more than 600,000 students participated in a voucher, scholarship tax credit or education savings account program last school year, according to EdChoice, a pro-voucher and school choice group.
There is little evidence that school vouchers actually improve student performance, however, and there's even evidence that students who receive vouchers to attend private schools may do worse on tests than they would have if they had stayed in authentic public schools.
Moreover, the cost of attending one of these private or parochial schools isn't completely covered by the voucher. On average, vouchers offer about $4,600 a year, according to American Federation for Children, which supports voucher programs. The average annual cost of tuition at a private K-12 school nationwide is $12,350, according to Educationdata.org, though that can be much more expensive in some states. In Connecticut, for example, the average tuition is almost $24,000. So vouchers only REDUCE the cost of attending private or parochial schools for a few kids while siphoning away tax dollars that should go to educating all kids.
In short, they're subsidies for wealthier kids at the expense of the middle class and disadvantaged.
Without standardized testing, it is impossible to imagine such an increase in privatization.
High stakes testing is a Trojan horse. It is a way to secretly undermine and weaken public schools so that testing corporations, charter schools and voucher schools can thrive.
Judged by its own metrics of success, standardized testing is an abject failure. Judged by the metric of business and school privatization it is a rousing success.
And that's why it has been so hard to discontinue.
This is corporate welfare at its finest, and the people getting rich off our tax dollars won't allow us to turn off the flow of funding without a fight.
On the right, policymakers are often boldly honest about their goals to bolster privatization over public schools. On the left, policymakers still cling to the failed measures of success testing has not been able to meet time-and-again.
However, both groups support the same system. They only give different reasons.
It is past time to wake up and smell the flowers.
If we want to ensure education dollars go to education and not profiteers, we need to end standardized testing.
& If we want to help students learn to the best of their abilities, we need to stop gaslighting them with faulty measures of success or failure.
If we want to allow teachers to do the best for their students, we need to stop holding them back with antiquated eugenicist shackles.
And if we truly want to save our public school system, we have to stop propping up privatization.
In short, we need to end standardized testing.
The sooner, the better.
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Obama's Education Secretary Pick a 'Lackey of the Corporate Machine'
Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, education experts among those criticizing policies supported by John King
Mar 04, 2016
Noted intellectual Noam Chomsky, author and activist Naomi Klein, and education historian Diane Ravitch are among those urging the U.S. Senate to reject President Barack Obama's pick for the next education secretary. They say the policies he's supported "have been ineffective and destructive to schools, educators, and most importantly students."
Their concerns are outlined in a letter published by the Washington Post on Thursday.
Obama's choice is John King, who's held the position of Acting Secretary of Education since the departure of Arne Duncan. King has already received an "astounding pass" from the Senate education committee last month, as Valerie Strauss wrote in an earlier story for the Post. At the hearings, he "was not asked one single direct question about the tumultuous 3 1/2 years he spent as the commissioner of education in New York state. Not by Republicans, and not by Democrats," she wrote.
King's critics have previously pointed out that he was a teacher for a mere three years, has been a fervent supporter of charter schools and high-stakes testing, displayed "autocratic behavior as state commissioner of education [which] spurred a massive parent opt-out from state testing," and was hit with the charge of being "responsible for more attacks on public educators than almost anyone else."
The new missive against his holding the position, which award-winning author Jonathan Kozol signed, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, and the Network for Public Education, charges, "John King is the wrong candidate, and he will follow the failed strategies of Mr. Duncan."
It was penned in great part by 20-year-old Nikhil Goyal, author of the just published book, Schools on Trial: How Freedom and Creativity Can Fix Our Educational Malpractice.
Goyal toldSalon that the letter is "yet another sign of the growing resistance in the United States against corporate, neoliberal reform -- school closures, standardized testing, and Common Core standards."
He also said,"[King's] agenda is just as terrible and oppressive as the former Secretary Arne Duncan," adding, "This country needs a secretary of education who will help bring some sanity into our classrooms, not a lackey of the corporate machine."
The letter is posted in full below:
To the U.S. Senate,
As educators, students, parents, and activists, we are writing to strongly urge you to reject the confirmation of John King, President Obama's nominee for the Secretary of Education. We believe he is the wrong choice for the position.
Research and evidence demonstrate that the education policies that John King has supported throughout his career, such as the Common Core standards, the collection of private student information, and high-stakes standardized testing, have been ineffective and destructive to schools, educators, and most importantly students.
As New York State Education Commissioner, he was an unapologetic supporter of the Common Core standards and inBloom. His policies failed. While test scores are flawed metrics, in 2013, just 31 percent of students in New York passed the English and math standardized tests, the first tests to be aligned to the Common Core and in three years the scores have barely budged. The achievement gap grew. Last year, over 200,000 students opted out of the tests.
Educators, parents, and students as well as the state teachers union and other public education advocacy groups called for King's resignation. His style is inflexible and he is quick to criticize the motives of those with whom he disagrees. He persistently refused to consider the desperate pleas of students and teachers who were reporting that the Common Core and value-added teacher evaluations were not working.
The American public deserves a Secretary of Education who will advocate for their interests, not those of the testing corporations who profit from the Common Core. We also deserve a Secretary who respects the importance of schools governed by communities, not by federal mandate.
Senators should not be misled by vague promises to do better as King offered at a recent hearing. John King is the wrong candidate and he will follow the failed strategies of Mr. Duncan. We strongly urge you to reject his nomination and recommend to President Obama that he nominate a candidate who will bring a progressive perspective to the department as it implements the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Signatures:
(Individuals)
Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor & Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus), MIT
Naomi Klein, Award-winning journalist and author
Diane Ravitch, Research Professor, New York University
Jonathan Kozol, National Book Award-winning author
Deborah Meier, Senior Scholar, New York University and 1987 MacArthur Fellow
Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate
Lucas Neff, Actor
Karen Lewis, President of the Chicago Teachers Union
Jeff Sharlet, Associate Professor of English, Dartmouth College
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Assistant Professor, Center for African American Studies, Princeton University
Carla Shedd, Assistant Professor of Sociology & African American Studies, Columbia University
Alfie Kohn, Acclaimed author on education
Nikhil Goyal, Author of the book Schools On Trial and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree
Linda Nathan, Senior Lecturer, Boston University
Steve Cohen, Lecturer, Tufts University
Corey Robin, Professor of Political Science, Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center
Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Professor emerita, Lesley University
Mary Beth Tinker, Free speech activist
Andrew Hartman, Associate Professor, Illinois State University
Henry Giroux, Professor of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University
Stephen Krashen, Professor Emeritus, University of Southern California
Peter McLaren, Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Chapman University
Mark Naison, Professor of History, Fordham University
Robert Buchanan, Undergraduate Faculty, Goddard College
Eva Swidler, Undergraduate Faculty, Goddard College
Lois Weiner, Professor of Education, New Jersey City University
Lawrence Brown, Assistant Professor, School of Community Health and Policy, Morgan State University
Jeanette Deutermann, Founder of Long Island Opt Out and parent
M. Zachary Mezera, Executive director of the Providence Student Union
Israel Munoz, Co-founder of the Chicago Student Union
Carol Burris, Executive Director of the Network for Public Education
Raynard Sanders, Radio host of The New Orleans Imperative
Howie Hawkins, 2014 Green Party candidate for NY Governor
Brian Jones, 2014 Green Party candidate for NY Lieutenant Governor
Benji Cohen, Doctoral history student, University of Virginia
Brian LeCloux, Wisconsin high school psychology teacher
Doug Henwood, Journalist and NYC public school parent
Liza Featherstone, amNY columnist, educator and NYC public school parent
Julian Vasquez Heilig, Professor of Education, California State University Sacramento
Wayne Au, Associate Professor of Education, University of Washington, Bothell
Jeff Bryant, Associate Fellow at Campaign for America's Future
Arnold Dodge, Associate Professor/Chair, Department of Educational Leadership and Administration, Long Island University Post
Anthony Cody, Author and educator
Lisa Edstrom, Brooklyn parent and educator
Rita Green, Alaska, Oregon, WA, Seattle/King County NAACP Education Chair
Nancy K. Cauthen, Sociologist
Jia Lee, Educator and 2016 UFT presidential candidate
Julie Cavanagh, Educator and 2013 MORE/UFT presidential candidate
Michael Klonsky, Executive Director at The Small Schools Workshop and educator
Monty Neill, Executive Director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest)
Jason Endacott, Assistant Professor of Secondary Social Studies Education, University of Arkansas
Chris Goering, Associate Professor, English Education, University of Arkansas
Lisa Rudley, Executive Director and Founding Member, NYS Allies for Public Education
Meg Norris, Founder/Director of Opt Out Georgia
Bianca Tanis, NYS Allies for Public Education
Katie Zahedi, NYS Allies for Public Education
(Organizations)
The Network for Public Education
New York State Allies for Public Education
Change the Stakes
New York City Opt Out
NYCpublic
Save Our Schools
Long Island Opt-Out
Parents Across Rhode Island
Opt Out Georgia
Time Out From Testing
Badass Teachers Association
Network for Public Education Action
Philly Neighborhood Networks
The Opt Out Florida Network
The North Country Alliance for Public Education
National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest)
United Opt Out National
Half Hollow Hills Teachers' Association
Teaching, Not Testing: A New Narrative for Education
Citizens for Public Schools, Massachusetts
Rethinking Schools
Save
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What School Walk-Ins Teach Us
Feb 18, 2016
There's a dangerous myth being perpetrated that the American public has given up on public education.
Those making this claim point to the swelling enrollments of charter schools and the spread of school vouchers that allow parents to transfer their children out of the public school system at taxpayer expense. Indeed, giving parents more opportunities to "vote with their feet" and leave the public education system is chipping away at the population of students enrolled in public education. But does this mean support for public education is declining, and parents are happily transferring out of the system?
This week, thousands of teachers, parents, students, and community supporters of public education demonstrated nothing could be further from the truth in a series of "walk-in" protests in over 30 cities involving 900 schools.
Those big numbers come from the event sponsors themselves, the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools, a national alliance of parent, youth and community organizations and labor groups that support public education. But numerous news stories in local press outlets and a lengthy Twitter stream of eyewitness accounts to the protests seem to prove those claims to be authentic.
It's hardly surprising these events brought out thousands of strong supporters for public schools. That's what they were intended to do. What's important, though, is to hear why the walk-ins are happening and what protestors are saying.
What's A "Walk-In?"
Walking into schools - as opposed to walking out - is a symbolic gesture of support for public education and an opportunity for concerned citizens and the media to see the conditions and challenges these schools face.
The walk-in concept originated in North Carolina and St. Paul, Minnesota, where teachers and students - unable or unwilling to walk out of schools - held walk-ins to voice their concerns, educate their communities, and galvanize support for public schools.
This week's events come at a time when, "The future of public education in the United States stands at a critical crossroad," according to a statement from AROS. The statement authors see "a web of billionaire advocates, national foundations, policy institutes, and local and federal decision-makers" working to "dismantle public education and promote a top-down, market-based approach to school reform."
But what do people on the ground see?
Why People Are Walking In
In Boston, the walk-in took place at City Hall where hundreds gathered outside to protest an estimated $50 million budget shortfall for the city's schools. "At the proposed level, district schools could lose teachers, after-school programs, and elective classes like languages and arts," according to a local news account. The crowd presented to the mayor a list of demands and a petition with more than 3,500 signatures, then proceeded to march to the State House to present their demands to the governor, too.
As part of the protest, ninth graders at one school, according to the Boston Globe, wrote a letter to the mayor complaining of the budget cuts and "asking that you come to our school and explain to our students why you are letting this happen."
School budget cuts were a point of contention in Chicago as well, where walk-in protests occurred at hundreds of schools across the city. "We're united as a community, "Chicago Teachers Union vice president Jesse Sharkey tells a local reporter. "The cuts are unacceptable."
Parents and students joined the teachers at many of the Chicago events, according to another local reporter, and voiced their disapproval of school budgets that have swollen class sizes and eliminated course offerings. "Not every school is able to get what they want for their students," one teacher explains. "I hope they get exactly what they're asking for," a parent chimes in.
At another Chicago rally, teacher Michelle Gunderson tells the reporter, "Schools are underfunded all over our country, especially in large urban districts."
"We need to create revenue for our neighborhood schools," a parent at the featured rally adds. "We don't need more charter schools."
Charter schools were also a point of protests in Los Angeles, where 20,000 were expected to turn out at events across the city, according to LA School Report. The target of the protestors' ire is a proposed plan to expand the city's already considerable supply of charter schools, which siphon money away from public schools.
"It's a zero-sum game for funding," another Los Angeles press outlet quotes American Federation President Randi Weingarten saying, "because of the attempts to create more and more and more charters at the expense of fixing local public schools."
A public school student tells the reporter her school "is something that we need to protect ... If we don't, it's going to fall into ruin and it's not going to be the same."
Signs and posters at one Los Angeles event, according to another local report, "focused on what students loved about their school - the teachers, the music." Participants in the protest fear these are the things being taken away from them in order to fund more charters.
Numerous walk-ins across Wisconsin protested funding cuts to schools while more resources are directed to charter schools and voucher programs. In Milwaukee, "Parents, educators and community leaders gathered at nearly 100 of Milwaukee's public schools," according to a local account. Protestors there spoke out against alleged "takeovers" of their public schools by charter school organizations and private schools funded by vouchers. In La Crosse, educators complained of the tough choices they have to make while charters and vouchers sap their resources without decreasing the costs of operating local schools. The result is loss of libraries, art and language programs, and support staff for students who need extra help.
In St. Paul, Minnesota, demonstrations in front of over 50 schools focused on funding demands teachers are making in upcoming contract negotiations. At rallies at more than 50 schools in Paterson, New Jersey, teachers, parents, and public officials spoke out against budget shortfalls and "private corporations [that] come in here and open schools that are not public." In Denver, protestors advocated for "smaller class sizes, deeper community partnerships to provide services for families, and greater accountability for charter schools." In San Diego, protesters wanted increased support for public schools and called for less emphasis on standardized testing. In Austin, walk-ins at three schools focused on funding for "community schools" that would offer increased health, emotional, and counseling supports for schools.
The common thread throughout these protests is pretty clear: lack of funding and support for public schools while resources are being directed elsewhere.
Who is responsible for that?
Who Has A Choice?
Views can differ on whether there is "a web" of collaborating groups - as AROS contends - directing education policy, and whether or not the intent is to "dismantle" public schools, but it's very clear the thousands of people involved in this week's walk-ins feel they have little choice in what's happening to their schools.
They did not choose to chronically underfund their schools and send public money somewhere else. Someone else chose to do that.
While some parents may find charter schools and vouchers can provide useful workarounds for them, that doesn't correct the chronic underfunding of the entire system and the unwillingness of political leaders to take that problem on. Participants in this week's walk-ins see the hard, bitter truth of that. Good for them.
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