Parents, teachers and administrators are screaming “enough is enough.” The revolt against standardized testing is growing as the funds federal and state officials allocate to develop new tests continues to grow.
“More teaching, less testing.”
“One, two, three, four…Kids are not a test score.”
Hundreds of parents and children chanted these statements outside the New York City offices of Pearson Education, a division of Pearson Plc, the nation’s biggest testing company. Pearson’s North American education division reported sales of $4.03 billion last year with an operating profit up 5 percent from 2010.
Standardized testing has become a multi-billion dollar industry with companies wielding power and millions to lobby for more and more testing.
The arguments for standardized testing are plausible. We can empirically measure student growth. We can now bypass the best students, historically put out front for show, and truly view the breadth of a school’s students. We can have another indicator of the performance of the teacher. Yet, I am still not convinced that humans can be objectively and quantitatively measured. I am still not convinced a third party you and I do not know, who probably had very different life experiences and outlooks from us, can create a test for you and I that would accurately determine who is keener. That is why I try not to give tests in my classes.
More than 500 Texas school boards and Broward County, Fla. have reduced their focus on standardized tests in recent years. John Kuhn, the superintendent of a small school district in north Texas, reminisced when testing was about discovering and addressing the needs of students.
