By Akshat Chowksey, ‘18
9 year-old Michael Stewart isn’t like most elementary-school boys. Born prematurely, missing the majority of his brain, and suffering from complete blindness; Michael is obviously at a severe disadvantage when compared to other children his age. However, in the eyes of the state, Michael is just like any other young male. As a result, he was forced to painstaking take the Florida Comprehension Assessment Test in order to assess his standing within the Florida’s educational system. The reasoning behind this? The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 believes that every child has the capacity to learn. Apparently even children without full brains.
Michael’s story encompasses everything wrong with the American educational system. Despite obvious drawbacks, every student is forced to take the same exact version of a test, regardless of respective situations. While not every story is as dramatic or tragic as Michael’s, numerous underprivileged students around the nation have raised their own concerns with the American standardized testing system.
In fact, the sheer illogicalness of having every student take the same exact exam has students across the nation wondering whether or not merely regurgitating information onto a standardized test is really worth it. However, with these very tests increasing their influence within the American educational landscape with every passing year, their detriments to the overall quality of education received by students are becoming more and more obvious.
In spite of the government’s avid persistence to implement standardized testing on a nationwide basis, a wealth of research on the negative effects of standardized testing within the classroom environment suggest that doing the opposite would be more effective.
There are several fundamental problems associated with standardized testing that develop from the fact that it holds a massive amount of influence in teacher evaluations. Specifically, according to the Economic Policy Institute, some states have standardized testing results account for over 50% of the teacher evaluation process. As a result, an increasing number of teachers feel pressured to raise their student’s test scores, leading to immoral and disastrous results.
Stemming from this increase in pressure for teachers to protect their job security is a phenomenon known as “teaching to the test,” where teachers shift their classroom focus from the best possible education towards preparing students for materials specifically on the test. In fact, Robert McGee of Drexel University reports that approximately 75% of teachers drop basic curriculum in favor of “teaching to the test,” despite the fact that this contradicts their own ideas of strong educational practices. In other words, being compelled into teaching to the test due to threats to job security, teachers are thereby forced to consciously go against their own teaching methodologies. As a result, by employing harmful methods of teaching in order to prepare for standardized testing, the quality of education received by students decreases rapidly.
In spite of the devastating harms to teachers, some, like David Hambrick of the University of Michigan, believe that standardized testing is beneficial due to the fact that it provides an equal opportunity for all students. Hambrick writets that by administering the same test to all students, and creating a “level playing field,” low-income students get the chance to showcase their abilities and improve their standings within the college admission process. Unfortunately, while this sounds great theoretically, in reality, the “level playing field” theory that Hambrick addresses, does not actually exist. In fact, standardized testing does the exact opposite, as it solely benefits one group of people: the high-income families of America.
The logic is fairly simple. Due to the fact that only wealthy families have access to expensive methods of test preparation, affluent students have higher average test scores when compared to students from the lower classes. As a result, Time Magazine reports that, over the past few decades, as America has embraced standardized testing, the achievement gap between the rich and the poor has grown by an astounding 60 percent. While at first glance, standardized testing may seem to promote socioeconomic equality, in reality, it just further perpetrates the issue of classism within the walls of American high schools.
Here at University School, a relatively privileged high school aiming to prepare its students for a successful college experience, taking a standardized test doesn’t seem like a big deal. Sure, while arduously studying for these exams may take an awful amount of time, these tests seem to be an intrinsic part of the education system – something we’ve all been training for over the past decade. Armed with a strong foundation of basic knowledge and the know-how to always pick the shortest option when forced to guess, US students have consistently been able to perform at the highest level when it comes to any form of national assessment.
However, while students at US may have the tools available to adequately prepare for the ACT, SAT, or whatever form of standardized test they are faced with, it’s exceedingly important to recognize the struggle that other, less privileged, students face when administering these tests – and appreciate the circumstances we’ve all been placed into.