| The problem with standardized testing in education is the following question: standardized for who?[0] The ultimate "sin", if you will, is that they tied test outcomes to funding and in practice is used to hold teachers to an arbitrary standard, not to help understand and guide the learning for students. For example, what could be done with standardized tests is that schools could use them at regular intervals to understand where each student is at, and adjust their learning resources accordingly to help students that aren't at grade level reach appropriate grade level academically, like if a student tests poorly in Math but not English Comprehension, it would make sense to adjust their schedule to give them more time to learn what they're struggling with and assigning resources appropriately, be it an extra half hour of math learning time with a tutor. That would actually make them useful. Instead, they're used to bludgeon teachers and school districts, and really the student outcomes are at best secondary to the whole operation, and since so much critical funding comes from sources tied to these outcomes, both good and bad outcomes mind you, hence the reason for the deliberate bell curve. Thats the real issue. In the US, education has become incredibly politicized to the point that I firmly feel it stopped being about actually educating students to be productive members of society and its about entrenched interests using it as a tool to push a broader political battle at the cost of student outcomes [0]: Not to mention that the pace of learning and aptitudes is varied by individual, some students will excel in X but not Y. This is a related, but for the purpose of this discussion, separate issue. Not to mention how much environment plays a role (a good home vs bad home situation for example). |
I.e. exactly what those pesky naysayers decades ago said would happen eventually.