Let the teachers who know us test us 

 

Two recent high school graduates call for an end to corporate-generated standardized tests. 

 

Education is a human right and the one great equalizer society can provide; it is for the good of all children and our society. Yet there is ongoing debate regarding the direction of American public education. We are college students, recently graduated from public education. We attest to the system’s fundamental flaw: Schools don’t work as well as they should.  

The method typically used to ascertain the progress, quality, and effectiveness of teachers, schools, districts, and even states derives from the results of standardized tests. Students in our state took standardized tests, including those of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) in math and English language arts. The PARCC test failed to accurately measure whether students learned what school was supposed to teach them. The material we were tested on — through the Colorado Measures of Academic Success (CMAS) exam was not consistent with the state-sanctioned curriculums we learned. Furthermore, based upon our experiences in our first year of college, we can confidently say that the ability to think critically and expansively, to persuasively synthesize research, and to be willing to question our own worldviews are the most valuable tools we have as students and citizens. The standardized tests we took a year ago did not truly measure any of these things.  

Public vs. private  

At its best, public education strives to teach each child as well as possible. By contrast, private education incentivizes schools to market and serve wealthier children. Private schools seek out students who can pay or are academically gifted, leaving economically or situationally disadvantaged students with little choice. The core values and practices of privatized education run counter to the purpose of our country’s education system.  

We therefore object to standardized tests for public schools being written and controlled by a private company. Pearson Education, the textbook and test giant, writes the PARCC test. PARCC pays Pearson $24 for each student who takes a PARCC test (Gewertz, 2014). Because teachers and schools are funded and evaluated to varying extents based on the results of tests like PARCC, many teachers teach to the test instead of crafting curricula based on student need, interest, and ability. Parts of this problem might still exist with a state-written test, but we nonetheless are being sold a test and by extension a curriculum. Absent a larger conversation and collaboration involving more teachers, the test will remain artificial and will perpetuate the win/lose paradigm associated with private education. We propose that states withdraw from the PARCC test and instead write their own tests using input from teachers. We also propose measuring student progress with a tool constructed by teachers as opposed to one constructed by a company paid to define and measure the success of a system supported by taxpayer dollars.  

Move forward by designing backward 

Not only do current standardized tests poorly reflect good educational values, but they also reflect flawed educational design by failing to test relevant knowledge and skills. For example, if the standard called for students to know how to build a wall, then you could collect evidence that the standard has been met by having a student use their mortar and brick-laying skills and knowledge to build a small brick wall. But standardized tests often only do the equivalent of asking students to recite different types of bricks and recognize famous brick walls. Worse, tests do not measure student interest or effort, which is far more important to student success. 

There are a few ways to view a student: as consumer, product, or client. The consumer model makes education a privilege of the vociferous and wealthy. The product model employs standardized tests as quality control agents to find defects in the products. PARCC and the education system that created it treats students as products. Surely there is a better philosophy to drive education. We believe that schools should view students as clients: When students are treated as clients, education becomes collaborative and for the benefit of the student and their goals and interests.  

We believe standardized tests in the U.S. should be owned and operated by the states, written by teachers, and transparent to those who design the standards, and to teachers, who design curriculum to meet the standard. In order to attain this, we ask for a three-year moratorium on standardized testing in the United States so that lasting and fundamental change may occur.  

Reference 

Gewertz, C. (2014, May 2). PARCC consortium lowers price of Common Core tests. Education Week. 

 

Citation: Francia, L. & MacKinney, A. (2016). BACKTALK: Let the teachers who know us, test us. Phi Delta Kappan, 97 (8), 80.