What standardized tests cannot measure and do not encourage

[JDPriestly]

Yesterday, I and about five other friends were sitting at a table with a brilliant mathematician who challenged us with a riddle. We easily solved it. Three of us were happy to end the discussion there. But two of us began to think of alternative answers, and to talk with our mathematician friend about which solutions would work, which would not why. Three of the six of us were focused on the "right" answer; three were focused on exploring the problem so as to learn from it and to find other answers.

Human progress depends not on whether we know the "right" answers, but on exploring alternatives to the "right" answers.

Standardized tests reward children for getting the "right" answers. But the most important aspect of a child's education is not knowing the "right" answer but rather knowing how to ask additional questions.

Michael Faraday (1791-1867), who among other things recognized or discovered the electromagnetic field, is an example of a person who didn't necessarily know all the "right" answers, but who knew how to ask the questions that allowed him to discover new "right" answers. Faraday's questions, his new "right" answers changed our civilization.

Trained to be a bookbinder, Faraday did not receive the impressive education or enjoy the social standing of so many other scientists of his time. According to Wikipedia,

"Although Faraday received little formal education and knew little of higher mathematics, such as calculus, he was one of the most influential scientists in history. Historians<4> of science refer to him as the best experimentalist in the history of science.<5> The SI unit of capacitance, the farad, is named after him, as is the Faraday constant, the charge on a mole of electrons (about 96,485 coulombs). Faraday's law of induction states that magnetic flux changing in time creates a proportional electromotive force."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday

Standardized tests do not measure or reward the abilities of the Faradays of our time. The obsession with standardized test scores will move the best and brightest in our society away from innovation and creativity. It will set us back not move us forward.

Of all people, Bill Gates should understand this. If, in junior and senior high school, his teachers had forced him to spend his time preparing for standardized tests (so that his teachers could keep their jobs), he would not have been able to spend hours and hours in the computer lab of his school, and he would not have developed his creative powers or made his fortune.

Frankly, if I were a parent, I would refuse to allow my child to take the standardized tests. I would protest. If the tests cannot be abolished entirely, they should at least be given only once every four years.

After all, we only hold presidential elections every four years. If every four years is often enough to assess the performance of our president, certainly it should be often enough to assess the performance of a ten-year-old. Think of the chaos that would occur if we held presidential campaigns every year. We wouldn't get anything else done. Now think about our schools.

Parents, you are in charge. You need to change this. These tests are hurting your children.

[tridim]

1. Same thing happens to me every time I take a new job..

Every boss I've worked for quickly discovers that I'm a unique problem-solver (most of my linkedin references also say this about me), but it is extremely difficult to demonstrate in a typical 30 minute interview. Especially right now because there are so many applicants for each job.

[HopeHoops]

2. Standardized tests can never measure one key factor: FUCKING REALITY!

:grr:

[LWolf]

3. Thank you. nt.

[kath]

4. JD, this was one of the main reasons we homeschooled our children.

We wanted to keep our children's curiosity and love of learning alive and for them to be critical thinkers. The increasing emphasis on standardized testing runs totally counter to those things. We made the decision 14 years ago, and things have gotten much, much, much worse since then.

More and more parents should boycott these tests. A few states allow an opt-out, but most do not.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. You can do that and send your kids to school. My parents did. And I did for my kids too.

I do agree about the tests though. Parents need to request an opt out option.

[starroute]

10. Opting out of the tests doesn't help if the tests control the teaching

Home schooling gets you out of teaching to the test -- but for any kid who's still stuck in that classroom, the tests are going to determine their experience whether they take them or not.

[kath]

11. Thanks. So much mind-numbing repetitive bullshit goes on in schools, and the problem gets worse and

worse and worse as more emphasis is placed on standardized testing.

At this point the schools are pretty much just like Stanley Kaplan Test Prep Centers.

[Recursion]

26. See, I've tutored a lot of students who never get mind numbing repetitive bullshit

And need it, very badly. They've been asked to make powerpoint presentations about the point-slope formula rather than, say, practicing the point-slope formula over and over again.

[JDPriestly]

12. Problem is that homeschooling is not possible in families in which

both parents have to work just to keep a roof over the family's head. Also, I object to homeschooling because it does not support community. Homeschooling is another way for the wealthy to gain advantages over the poor and middle class. One parent has to be earning a very good salary if the other is to stay home full-time or even most of the time with the children.

We need to make our public schools work. They did back in the 50s in spite of the overcrowding caused by the baby boomer generation.

[Maat]

29. That's interesting that you object, but ...

it's not going to matter.

We have homeschooled for years, and plan to continue.

You may call it selfish; however, my kid's education is not going to be sacrificed for a reputation of being 'unselfish' or 'for community.'

Sorry if that offends you (eye-roll).

[HereSince1628]

5. The process vs content debate is longstanding in education

Interestingly, science educators although deeply committed to process often have no degrees of freedom when it comes to choosing what process to teach. American science education is very very long on experimental method almost inversly very very short on theoretical methods and almost universally demeaning of surveillance and trial by error methods. Nonetheless all these methods are useful and used (if not equally so) by scientists.

Our educators have the strange idea that there is some process called "THE scientific method" that begins with observation and ends in theoretical understanding stated as a scientific law.

My experience as a scientist hasn't been like that. Once engaged in pursuit of understanding it's pretty common to feel that a project begins with puzzling about a theory and ends up back puzzling about that same theory and how it can contextualize our observations...there is a sense that in our circling effort we are closing in on understanding but yet never doing so in a manner that is fully satisfactory.

[Recursion]

24. Ain't that the truth

Actually, from my time at the lab, I'd have to say 95% of what scientists do with their time is chase after funding. I didn't get any tips on how to do that in high school science class.

And I agree, the PHRIEC model or whatever it's called now is frankly silly. Nobody comes to an issue with no preconceived hypotheses -- and for all the danger of those, without them we'd never get anywhere.

[stray cat]

6. US kids are also failing relative to China in terms or creativity and problem solving

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Excellent. Thank you.

Strongly recommended.

[Boojatta]

9. What principle did you rely upon to get from your assumption to your conclusion?

If every four years is often enough to assess the performance of our president, certainly it should be often enough to assess the performance of a ten-year-old.

[JDPriestly]

13. I was joking.

Drawing a comparison that of course does not work just to demonstrate the absurdity of constantly testing children.

Standardized tests are one of the ways to measure progress in school. But it is only one way. It should not dominate the entire educational experience any more than the election process should dominate an entire presidency.

Both tests and elections have their place and time. But holding elections too often or testing too often would take a lot of energy and resources that should be spent on other things.

[Taitertots]

14. Standing on the shoulders of giants

Faraday didn't work in a vacuum. He was highly educated for the time and would likely score very well on any standardized tests.

Bill Gates is a laughable example. He just bought up and sold someone else's operating system. Tim Paterson learned about computer programing in college, so standardized tests in K-12 would not have stopped his programing work.

[JDPriestly]

16. I read that Gates attended a private high school and developed

his computer skills on the school computer during his free time. Where did you get your information?

[Recursion]

20. Faraday famously said "I do not have the maths"

He made very important qualitative discoveries about electromagnetism, but did not have the calculus (and to some extent, the calculus was not fully developed) to express them in the equations Maxwell made so famous (though Maxwell himself didn't come up with them, and only corrected Ampere's circuital law to account for dB/dT). Though even the way we see them today wasn't Maxwell's notation; he used quaternions rather than four variables.

[Recursion]

15. True, but...

... I went to a Montessori school from K-6. There, everything was focused on exploring and process, and basically nothing on actually getting the right answer. As I went on to the engineering field I feel both the pro and con of that: I just don't have the "right answers" drilled into my head on some simple things that a lot of colleagues do. I mean, it's possible to go too far this way; you actually do need to get kids to the right answers and have them remember them.

Maybe in terms of your analogy, what if Faraday had had Maxwell's mathematical background? We could have saved decades.

More to our point: if my time as a grad student leading undergrad sections had shown me legions of technically competent but unimaginative undergrads, I would agree; as it is I saw kids with plenty of imagination and ability to innovate and communicate, but an insufficient grasp of the basic mechanics of calculus and especially linear algebra (this last one may be less important now that calculators can do matrix manipulations; being able to grind out an integration by parts remains very important, though).

[JDPriestly]

17. Recursion, I agree completely with you. It is a matter of balance.

We went too far in the creativity direction at one time and now we are going too far in the "learn your math facts" direction. Children need both.

I think, however, that a lot of the math facts, history fact and grammar facts drill could be practiced at the computer. So, I agree with you.

I'm not actually that well versed in science. As "just a girl." my teachers assumed I could not possibly have any talent for math or science.

In passing, one good use for standardized tests is to identify a person's talents. Gender stereotypes don't work well. My daughters excelled in math and science, and, with a little encouragement, I probably would have too. Standardized tests for aptitude could have helped my teachers and parents steer me in the right direction.

I'm not totally opposed to standardized tests, but all of the teachers I know are complaining that the tests are given too frequently and that preparing for them takes too much classroom time.

[Recursion]

18. Hm

As "just a girl." my teachers assumed I could not possibly have any talent for math or science.

Really?

[sudopod]

23. My gf got an engineering BS

She caught so much of that bullshit. It was shocking.

[Recursion]

25. Weird. The top students in all my classes have been female

As were all my high school teachers and a majority of my undergrad teachers (grad school was EE which is still male-dominated at the senior prof. level, but even there the top students were all female).

It's just why it seems such an alien idea to me.

[sudopod]

28. Could be regional. There's a lot more of that sort of thing even in the general populatiobn

round these parts. :p

[JDPriestly]

30. Absolutely true. I attended high school in the South in the 1950s.

[Starry Messenger]

19. k&r!

[aikoaiko]

21. Yes, but standardized tests are fine for assessing the ability to determine the "right answers"

Which is important too. I agree that standardized tests are weaker at assessing other types of cognitive abilities, but being able to figure out the "right answer" will get kids pretty far. In many ways your anecdote is an example of its importance. Once you were able to determine the "right answer" it was fun to build on that.

[montanto]

22. Maybe, maybe not.

Sometimes the questions, written by humans as they are, are flawed. I have seen questions that have alternate correct answers. I have seen other questions that were flawed enough that I wouldn't be able to answer them. This is on the reading/language arts tests btw. The math tests are fairly sound I think.

[aikoaiko]

27. Yes, but errors are a part of nonstandardized testing techniques as well.

I certainly don't think standardized tests are perfect, but they can assess quite a bit of content knowledge.

[proud2BlibKansan]

33. Something many folks don't know:

It's impossible to get a perfect score on a normed standardized test. A 100% screws up the norms. So there are always several questions for which there is no right answer.

One more reason to reject the over use of standardized tests.

[MadHound]

31. Actually no, in many cases they're not

Kids aren't all able to take standardized tests well, many are wired differently. These kids are better assessed using things like portfolios, reports or other alternatives to the standardized test.

[aikoaiko]

32. I find that there is usually a strong correlation between essays and standardized test scores.

Sure, every once in a while someone does well on one but not the other, but across groups they are correlated.

Standardized tests do pretty well.