Issues in education: standardized testing
Archived article from Nov 30, 2001
From grade school to graduate study, the one constant in a student's life is the standardized test. Many states, including New Jersey, use standardized tests to measure student progress, and all 50 states may soon be required to under pending federal legislation. Those contemplating higher education similarly face an array of such tests that help determine which applicant gets into which school -- the SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT and LSAT among them.
But standardized tests have come in for a lot of criticism lately. Some critics say a single test cannot adequately measure a student's knowledge or predict future performance. Others say these types of tests are biased against certain segments of the population. Across the United States, parents in growing numbers are refusing to allow their children to be tested, most visibly in New York, where 1,500 marchers stormed Albany in protest of that state's regents' examinations.
Against this backdrop, Focus recently asked three experts at the Graduate School of Education's Center for Education Policy Analysis to share their views on standardized testing.
Testing and teaching
By William A. Firestone, professor of education policy
As New Jersey tests children in more subjects and grades than ever before, it is important to know if all this testing is helping children or harming them.
The negative view is captured in the term "teaching to the test," which generally means that teachers are focusing so closely on getting students ready for the assessment itself that they aren't teaching the subject matter being tested. Critics charge that this sort of teaching leads to a "drill-and-kill" approach to instruction where meaningless practice and rote memorization over time dull a teacher's classroom skills and keep children from developing a deeper understanding of the subject.
Many advocates of state testing, however, argue that well-designed tests will encourage teachers to use a wider variety of instructional approaches to help children actively explore the ideas of the discipline. Through meaningful and thought-provoking activities, students come to understand each field in the curriculum more thoroughly than if they were limited to "book learning" and older drill-based procedures.
To find out how New Jersey's new Elementary School Performance Assessment (ESPA) testing program is affecting teaching in the state, we conducted a survey of almost 300 fourth-grade teachers that focused on their teaching of mathematics and science, and interviewed and observed about 60 teachers.
Teachers say they are changing how they teach. They ask students to explain their thinking more than ever before. One teacher said her students "have to give the rationale and reason for what they do." Teachers mentioned several teaching strategies that encourage students to think about their solution methods, including the use of open-ended questions and cooperative learning where students have to explain their ideas to each other. Teachers reported more emphasis on problem solving and using manipulatives such as pattern blocks, geoboards and other hands-on materials where children can see the relationships behind mathematical notations.
Still, changed practice is not yet pervasive. We observed two math classes from each teacher and found that the old pattern of fact-oriented drill still prevails. Throughout the state, teachers use cooperative groups more than they did a few years ago. Students worked in such groups for at least part of the time in two-thirds of the lessons we observed. However, in half of those groups, there was very little substantive discussion of mathematics.
While teachers are thinking more about explanations in mathematics, they aren't asking for them often. In three-fourths of the observed classrooms, teachers only checked to see if children came up with the right answer or arrived at the correct solution. The typical response was a short comment like, "OK, next." Teachers only asked more probing questions about how children solved problems about a fifth of the time.
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