I’m generally against testing as a means of tracking progress. This is because they fundamentally represent what school is today. Tests have reshaped formal education into an industrial-like institution and created competition like never before (Wow, it’s like mini America for children!).
First of all, if tests are an effective way of tracking progress, I would ask then why they aren’t used in early learning; throughout the primary grades?
Next. Yes, tests are an effective way of tracking data. Unfortunately, very little data in school is designed to be tested. Math is one of the few subjects that fit the test model well. However, even in that case, it truly depends on the way the tests were created.
Tests cannot be shaped around cramming and memory leaking. This alone completely explains why tests should not be used. They track the wrong data. Tests are evaluating your memory skills more often than not. And while we’d like to think that everybody can remember everything they’ve ever been told, we know that that is not the case. People remember what is important to them; things they usually repeat day after day. Like, driving a car. If you stop driving a car for 10 years, it will surely be hard to hop in the seat and just go.
That leads to a larger issue of what exactly is being taught in schools, which obviously affect what is put into the tests. There needs to be far more emphasis on skills development rather than just mindless knowledge. I’m not saying some history should not be taught. I am saying however that there is limited time to people’s lives and not everyone is designed to be a human Wikipedia. That’s what Wikipedia and Google are for; to learn something when don’t know about, when such a time arises.
But I digress. To give an example of where a test is effective: IQ tests. Theses are real brain busters, designed to engage visual observation, detection of patterns, and problem solving. This is not testing memory or knowledge; it is testing a skill.
Politicians like to claim it is essential to employ standardized testing to ensure an effective means of tracking progress is in place. Beyond what I’ve just debunked about the nature of the data they are testing, there is another fundamental problem with their argument. Simply, they are claiming that by judging which students and which schools are getting the worse marks, they can decide where more funding should be allocated. The conflict here though, and it may be different depending on where you are from, is this rationalization of testing for funding allocation does not work if the system has true student equity. By that I mean that every student is given a certain piece of the funding pie each year. I suppose it may change depending on grade or disabilities, etc., but it should be relatively the same for all. A system such as this does not allow for extra handouts to one school versus another. And generally, if a student is disabled, the school and teachers know about it, and it isn’t really an issue.
So, truly, how does testing, and standardized testing, help out your average kid in school. The truth is that it doesn’t.
When administration sees low marks in specific areas, they demand that the teacher’s spend more time to hammer a subject in to students. On a rare occasion, something like a “writing initiative” may be launched, which, again, never helps out the average student. So, the excuse that more funding goes to worse school does not hold up, and in fact, many would argue, becomes a detriment to the health of the school’s ecosystem.
Alright. So, let’s propose an elmination of tests. Let’s say every student gets equitable funding every year. How does one effectively measure and track student’s progress?
While this would require a good teacher to student ratio, nothing higher thatn 25:1, project-based learning is the way to go. It’s a useful means of developing well rounded skills about all kinds of subjects. There, along with well defined criteria and flexible curriculum, the teacher, peers, and the world aid in evaluating a student’s work. Imagine a three pronged system, where the teacher’s influence is only one among many, and the project is designed for the audience of the internet. The wisdom of crowds is employed here and would surely provide a more equal evaluation for all students.
Education is a long term commitment and policies, unlike true initiatives, take a while to see real benefits. Many times, it takes almost a generation to see are real societal change come about through schools. So, how do politicians track their progress with schools? Easy. With important, easily trackable data, like the images below that show the statistics on the highest level of education of students each year. Or, there could be graphs based on the number of apprenticeships, or the student to teacher ratio. This is real, profound information politicians could work off of. Showing that their education policies are making real change to their communities and developping a better world.
