Further Education

Another look at Standardize Testing:

In my wandering  of the web I found what appeared on first glance to be an

opposing view to the ideas and actions of Timothy Slekar of Pennsylvania,

an educator and teacher/mentor of other educators.  As I discussed in an 

earlier blog entry, Slekar, is participating in a parental push-back/revolt 

against the fourteen days of standardized testing children have to go 

through every year from grades 3 through 8 in Pennsylvania.

 http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/21/perrys-principles-parents-opt-out-of-standardized-tests/    

Steve Perry, CNN’s educational contributor, was also featured in a piece

that addressed standardized testing.  Mr. Perry is a supporter of 

standardized testing as an indicator of the process of students and the

school’s ability to fulfill its mission of graduating students with at least a 

minimum level of basic skills. 

Although Perry, a principal at a charter school that has drawn a lot of 

attention due its success in educating  “under achieving and at risk

students” sees standardized tests as valuable indicators.  In a

“perfect world”, his standardized tests would be a great deal different

than what was going on in Pennsylvania the week he gave the CNN interview.

Perry states that in order to make standardized tests be relevant, help

students and help us understand how students are progressing,  several things

must take place.  First, he would not allow all tests to happen in a single block of time, 

and I agree, finals week,  is stressful enough for high school and college students,

subjecting 8 year olds to a fourteen day all- class- day battery of tests is cruel and

 abusive. 

Perry also recommends having more than just  written tests, acknowledging that 

doing well in a written  test on reading and writing does not show that the child is

good at everything and that just because a child is not good at those things does

not mean the child is not good at anything. I agree with Perry that children should

be allowed to show that they are  learning on something other than tests such as

project or performance based learning. 

There remains a need to measure progress to show that students are actually

 learning and will have the minimum skills of reading, writing and mathematics 

to negotiate their world, along with critical thinking skills.   

Many questions need to be answered such as :

• What  is progress

• Progress to where? 

• Don’t kids progress at differing rates that may be ideal for them?

• How do measure what is meaningful progress for children with 

• different talents? 

We should also acknowledge the existence of multiple intelligences, multiple and

differing skills and talents that all lead to different paths to and   indeed different 

definitions of success. We do not need uniform graduates as a product of our

education system, in fact the students are the customers who cannot have their

expectations of being prepared for the world met through testing and being educated

towards the test.

Meaningful metrics need to be put into place so that we can give the customers of the

education system a good product. Perhaps we need to keep in mind who

these customers are.  We need to keep them in mind when making changes in the 

educational process as we work to continually improve it.  . We do not need uniform

graduates as a product of our educational system, in fact the students are the

 customers.  These customers are not having their expectations of being prepared

for the world met through a huge battery of testing and by being educated towards

 the test. 

In supporting compliance but suggesting a more ideal alternative, Perry seems

to be giving a pretty good argument against  standardized testing by giving us 

of a  suggestion of the need for non-standardizing standardized testing.