Kyle Carlson
19July2018
EDRG4331
Professor Collins
High Stakes Position Paper
As long as there has been a United States government, there has been a debate concerning federal versus local control. While many consider this a political issue whose realm is relegated to the justice system and matters of similar natures, this dichotomy directly ties into the public education system. As a result of this tension between federal, state and local authorities, curriculum and standardized testing have evolved to meet the demands of these agencies. Legislation such as no child left behind and many other similar bills, from both major parties, have demanded that taxpayer funds display tangible results. Naturally, as beaurocrats have no imagination, the results they seek are high-test scores. Test scores must not be the primary basis for terminating the employment of an otherwise effective and committed teacher. High stakes mandatory testing must be eliminated in our public education system for three major reasons: they erode our teachers’ effectiveness to provide instruction when those teachers that must contend with notion of punishment if they fail to teach to the test, the testing is often inherently biased against those special needs students or second language learners, and single a exam does not yield accurate and reliable information for which to base future curriculum, funding, and other decisions from.
All too often in public education teachers are placed in to a nearly impossible position. They are told they must teach content that enriches the lives their students and fosters comprehension and learning, while simultaneously being told that the end of year standardized test must produce results in the form of high test scores and that these scores have serious implications on both the school curriculum and funding and potentially their own employment as a teacher. This notion of tying the scores of a single to such major decisions concerning education is haphazard and creates an environment of fear that stifles creativity, cooperation, and learning. According to the National Education Association “If a school (or district) is identified as not making sufficient progress towards improvement or in outcomes, the district (or state) would investigate causes and undertake a series of interventions tailored to address particular needs.”(NEA pg5) This tailored approach is a best a case scenario and many would tend to agree that its goal is honorable. The issue becomes the implementation of such accommodations to the school. Does a school with low performing students receive additional funding or do the teachers receive some sort punitive incentive to raise test scores. An environment where corruption is possible is created when a teacher feels that their job may on the line if their classroom does not reach a particular score. This type of stress may motivate teachers in to unethical behavior and may some teaching directly to the test or even possibly cheating or modifying test results. The National Education Association goes on to provide another prescription to address these realities and suggests multiple exams are necessary to provide a larger context to results when they write “Encourage states and districts to use multiple sources of evidence from state and local assessments and other forms of evidence to inform actions such as interventions and technical assistance.” (NEA pg5) If standardized testing is absolutely essential, than it is imperative that these tests become diverse in their methodologies and account for a broad range of academic intelligences in students and that no single test result will have such intense ramifications as to incentive unethical behavior in its administering teachers.
Many agencies that study assessment strategies and high stakes testing have identified a fatal flaw in many standardized tests; discrimination. Students with special needs, second language learners, and those students that simply struggle to translate their knowledge to multiple choice test often suffer undeserved low test scores due to the policies and procedures of how many high stakes are administered. The American Educational Research Association identifies these issues when they proclaim “In testing individuals with disabilities, steps should be take to ensure that test scores inferences accurately reflect the intended construct rather than any disabilities and their associated characteristics extraneous to the intent of the measurement” (AREA pg1) The AREA is acknowledging the damaging impact that students with disabilities may unfairly be suffering from when these tests are designed in a way that allows no room for variance or larger contextual perspective of what the student truly understand and struggles to communicate. The American Education Research Association goes on to address the needs of students whose primary language is not English. “If a student lacks mastery of the language in which a test is given, then that test becomes, in part, a test of language proficiency. Unless a primary purpose of a test to evaluate language proficiency, it should not be used with students who cannot understand the instructions or the language of the test itself. If English language learners are tested in English their performance should be interpreted in the light of their language proficiency. Special accommodations for English language learners may be necessary to obtain valid scores.” (AREA pg1) If a student is struggling to understand the rhetoric of a particular question, then that questions immediately becomes an assessment of reading and language comprehension first, and a matter of content comprehension second. Standardized exams must be modified to allow for students whose primary language is not English with the goal being to assess them on subject knowledge and not language proficiency.
The aggregation and dissemination of test scores is a key point of failure in many standardized testing systems. Student success must not be viewed as a singular immutable number. The American Educational Research Association addresses concerns on this the accuracy and reliability of these scores when they write: ““Reliability refers to the accuracy or precision of test scores. It must be shown that scores reported for individuals or for schools are sufficiently accurate to support each intended interpretation. Accuracy should be examined for the score actually used. For example, information about the reliability of raw scores may not adequately describe the accuracy of percentiles; information about the reliability of school means may be insufficient if scores for subgroups are also used in reach decisions about schools.” (AREA pgX) In other words, raw data does not paint a complete picture. School districts if they must administer these high stakes tests must remain vigilant against becoming myopic in their approach and decisions regarding curriculum and choices made concerning faculty and student placement. Standardized testing is shown to not accurately gauge a students’ knowledge of a topic. Often students are unable to translate their understanding of a topic due to stress, or testing styles. This one-dimensional approach to testing yields results that are skewed against many students. The National Council for Teachers Education writes “since group-administered, machine-scorable tests do not normally encourage students to reflect constructively on their reading and writing, do not provide specific and timely feedback, and generally do not provide high-quality information about students, they seem unlikely to serve the best interests of students. “ (NCTE, pg3) Along with receiving results that do not accurately portray the real learning of students, these results are used in ways that harm teachers and the educational goals of schools when they poor results used as primary motivation for curriculum and funding matters. The International Reading Association expresses concerns on the reliability of results when they write “Tests are imperfect. Basing important decisions on limited and imperfect information can lead to bad decisions – decisions that can do harm to students and teachers and that sometimes have unfortunate legal and economic consequences for the schools” (IRA pg4) Not only
While many see standardized testing as a necessary evil to gauge student success, the impacts of testing that is administered unfairly, does not accurately gauge a students learning and harshly impacts the employment and curriculum decisions of schools draws a price a tag of collateral damage that is too costly to continue carrying on with. These high stakes testing initiatives aim to appease the taxpayer and politician who demand results for their dollars that can be expressed simply on a word document or spreadsheet. Unfortunately, true learning that encompasses the depth and breadth of what teachers aim for in students of a diverse nature do not translate simply to a single score. We must see these students as individuals with different cultural and educational backgrounds that need to be accommodated with nuance and reflection. If a student fails to do well on a single end of year exam but has demonstrated knowledge and creativity throughout the year must not be unfairly held back based on their failure to circle the correct bubble. For all these reasons we must end high stakes testing and allow professional teachers to use their experience and critical faculties to gauge the understanding of those students they work with on a daily basis, rather than a beurocrat in another state.