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New York City
May 2003

Problems with Standardized Testing

I have been haunted by some clearly wrong assumptions about educating children in some local newspapers; but I decided to write this only after I read a journalist quote that “standards-based education reform assumes that every child should possess a basic set of knowledge and that there is an objective standard for judging whether a child has acquired that knowledge.”

Surprisingly, one of these journalists, C. Barnes, holds the same views as E.D. Hirsch, Jr. (author of Cultural Literacy—What Every American Needs to Know) who claimed that students able to learn a mere 5,000 randomly-chosen “facts” would win the ‘key to success’—regardless of what school, school budget, or teaching methods were utilized in the process! Teachers under Hirsch’s Core Knowledge teaching system became drill-sergeants, forcing students in grades 1 through 8 to memorize then test on such facts as famous names, places, and book titles to be declared ‘culturally literate.’ It didn’t work; and potential life-long learners came to hate school.

Unfortunately, Barnes agreed with two wrong assumptions made by Hirsch about learning: that there are right answers with only one way to learn them; and that learning is linear and takes place only in a set sequence. Both are dead wrong. In fact, information is usually committed to memory if it is grounded in reality and usefulness; and it usually happens when students get to discuss, play, imagine, and/or just plain think.

Since so many writers seem to endorse standardized tests as being a quick, economical assessment tool to measure a student’s progress, my question for Mr. Barnes (and others) is simple: Why would any good teacher embrace a memorize-then test teaching method when they witness how it turns kids off of learning? Also, I have seen first hand that these methods waste valuable, in your face, learning time and that these tests just don’t measure anything of value.

Finally, I keep asking myself some tough questions such as: How can a single performance test given on one day a year compare to student assessments done by teachers over 40 weeks? Wouldn’t it be like claiming to understand a person’s whole life by looking at a single snapshot? And, since drill and test methods promote conformity and regurgitation of random facts rather than critical thinking, aren’t we in danger of losing what really counts as we educate our young citizens of America?

Albert Einstein once said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” He had a point.

Diane K. Trumbull is a professional tutor & public school teacher.

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