Standardized Testing’s Impact on Students

I do not believe that things such as standardized testing and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) are really helping our students learn. In fact, they may actually be making things worse for education in our country.

The only two major tests I have experience with are the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL, Washington State standardized test) and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS, discontinued in Washington State). The way our state used to test students was by using the ITBS, which had 4 sections, Reading, Writing, Science, and Mathematics. It was all multiple choice, and was meant to test how well you picked up the knowledge from the year. Now, the state uses the WASL, which is a combination of written answer, multiple choice and written answer, and multiple choice questions. It is meant to grade you against the state and national benchmark scores.

By using tests that grade against benchmarks, teaching in schools is no longer geared towards forwarding your education, but geared towards passing the test. Many teachers, instead of following their previous curricula, follow new curricula, which generally teach only the knowledge required for the test, not anything more. This “teaching to the test” may help students who have a hard time picking up knowledge, but holds back students who can pick up knowledge easily and gifted students who have been learning the same thing for many years. Before WASL, if you were gifted in math, you would be given Pre-Algebra in 6th grade, Algebra 1 in 7th grade, Geometry in 8th, etc. I began Pre-Algebra in 6th grade, but the curriculum for mathematics in my school district changed that summer, and I am just now going into Algebra 1/Geometry (now combined) in 9th grade. Do students really need 3 YEARS of pre-algebra?

Standardized testing is hurting our school system, and is not what is going to pull us back up to the top. What we need is a curriculum that does NOT teach to the test, a curriculum that teaches to the students’ levels, and helps ALL students, not just the special-needs students.