Most Americans take standardized mental tests as a rite of passage from the day they enter kindergarten. Gatekeepers of America’s meritocracy-educators, academic institutions, and employers-have used test scores to label people as bright or not gifted, as worthy academically or not worthy enough to hold a mop.
Indeed, not only is it a stigma, but one largely unrecognized in our culture. Standardized tests and the scores that they spew have become the defining motif of what passes for measuring school reform and progress in this day and age. Across the country, students, teachers, and schools are being rewarded or punished based on a set of “tolerable” test scores. Whether you consider yourself to be intelligent, dense, lethargic, or diligent the only measure a student has (or that society recognizes) is how fast and how accurately they can darken the circles on a multiple-choice test.
This test-based reform model began about a decade ago with a call for elevated standards. This metamorphisized into a reliance on standardized tests to determine if high standards were being met. Today, children are being held back, denied access to a preferred program or school, and even refused a high school diploma on the basis of a single standardized test. As Mack points out, the obsession with test scores is not likely to go away any time soon, despite growing criticism from parents and teachers that tests are not the true measure of potential from today’s students. Scores of politicians, corporate leaders, and think tanks have embraced test-based reform as the only way to shake up public schools and get more bang for the taxpayers’ buck.
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Currently, forty-nine states have state standards in core academic subjects, up from fourteen in 1996. Iowa is the only sensible state to holdout, prompting author and anti-testing advocate Alfie Kohn to comment, “Thank God for Iowa.” A growing number of states, twenty-seven at last count–are implementing “high-stakes tests.” In addition, many school districts are on their own, adopting the same approach. As many politicians would have us believe, that at long last communities and school boards across the nation are cracking down on unmotivated students, burnt-out teachers, and bureaucratic urban systems–and ensuring that all schools provide a minimal level of academic quality. Wrong! Unfortunately, this is not the case at all.
The consequence from the standardized testing is like the creation of a snowball. At first, the snowball is small and fun to play with-but as it rolls down the hill, it picks up speed and size, eventually amassing into something uncontrollable and devastating. That’s our beloved educational system! I whole-heartily agree with Mack that the current backing of standardized testing only leads to a dumbed-down curriculum that values remote memorization over in-depth thinking exacerbates inequities for low-income students and students of different race that standardized testing “doesn’t favor,” and undermines true accountability among schools, parents, and the community.
Unfortunately, the general consensus of the American population towards standardized testing is similar to that of a drug addict who knows he should quit, but is unable to let go. America is hooked. We are a nation of standardized-testing junkies.
