Standardized Testing
Has it Failed or Succeeded?
By Daniel Muniz

Is No Child Left Behind (NCLB) a failure? Standardized testing has had its supporters as well as it critics to address the issue of a quality education. But very few people want to examine the big picture.

The Bush Administration had all the good intentions in the world but the legislation had a fundamental flaw to start off with.

NCLB allowed states to maintain control over the testing standards and content, which is what created its ultimate downfall. However, I am not the kind of person to reject the intent of NCLB but I don’t want to get caught in the crossfire between those who want standardized testing and those who oppose it. Admittedly, I do hate to sit on the fence but that is because both approaches on this issue are as wrong as they are right.

Without standardized testing, a lousy school can continue to be a lousy school without any ramifications. In fact, some schools have made passing to the next grade so ridiculously easy that it is next to impossible to fail. A kid would almost have to purposely find a way to flunk out.
 

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And the examples are endless. Certain schools no longer assign homework because their students won’t do it. The reason is because if homework isn’t turned in, students’ grades suffer and the teacher is reprimanded. And if a teacher fails too many students, then he or she will be severely reprimanded even if the educator did their job right. In fact, there are plenty of principals who will pass a failing student and won’t even bother to consult with the teacher about it.

Consequently, there are too many shenanigans and perverse incentives that it becomes a vicious cycle that degrades the quality of an education. To solve these problems, standardized testing was introduced.

But with standardized testing, all a state had to do was make the test incredibly easy to pass since they already controlled the testing standards and content. In some states like Texas and Georgia, there are standardized tests that all a kid has to do is correctly answer only slightly less than half of the questions in order to pass to the next grade. And every year, more states are watering down their standards. Ironically, many of these schools can now claim that they improved education because more kids are passing.

In addition, widespread cheating is quietly overlooked. In Texas, the state identified numerous school districts where kids with awful academic performance passed the standardized tests with flying colors. Texas education officials refused to call it cheating but promised to look into these so-called irregularities. After an investigation, the whole issue was calmly swept under the rug and hardly anyone was admonished.

Before and after NCLB, the outcome really hasn’t changed all that much. Consequently, in the battle over standardized testing, the reason I don’t want to take sides is because no one wants to hold society accountable.

Suppose a school did implement a quality education and a worthwhile curriculum. Now imagine if a huge batch of students failed. Society would criticize all the wrong people. If a teacher did his or her job correctly but a student wasn’t up to snuff or refused to study, then who should be at fault?

Sadly, it is way too easy for our society to blame the teacher, the curriculum, the school, and everyone else.

Our culture and especially our politicians have become so fixated with everybody passing to the next grade or graduating that they are willing to overlook the fact that it actually takes hard work to become academically successful, thus they are willing to accept the mush that now passes as education.

And worse, the public gets upset when Johnny can’t read or write or do math but then they get equally upset when he also fails a grade or doesn’t graduate.

Society cannot have it both ways and unfortunately, that has been what the supporters and critics of standardized testing have been clamoring for. Both sides equally want our children to have a quality education but both sides are unwilling to pay the price for it.

And what too many people fail to realize is that both approaches can equally succeed and they both can equally fail. And in fact, we have witnessed precisely that. Before standardized testing, there were plenty of lousy schools. And after standardized testing, there are still plenty of lousy schools.

At first, my inclination was to blame unscrupulous disingenuous school administrators and state leadership. Too many of them are dishonest and lack integrity to be responsible stewards of our education system. However, the blame is incomplete because the pubic is also not held responsible.

There is nothing wrong with students failing if an educator and the school correctly did their job.

Yet, the public is more than willing to penalize teachers and schools for doing their jobs. The result is that society has made our educational leadership dishonest and fraudulent. We have created these perverse incentives for school administrators to live under and we are always ready to pounce on them if they ever dare tell us the truth.

Yes, much of our educational system for parts of the country is a mess but it is really of our own creation. If we as a society ever want to fix this problem, then we have to be prepared to face the truth.

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