Educators agree that there needs to be a form of assessment to evaluate if students are learning and progressing academically and developmentally. The debate over what form that assessment should take has been on going. Currently schools are using high stakes testing to assess their students and also to report at the state and federal level if their students are progressing. High stakes testing has been receiving negative reviews for many reasons.
High-stakes testing affects the curriculum being taught in schools, it affects how teachers teach their students, and usually affects how much meaningful learning takes place in a classroom. It is a common misconception that what is taught in a classroom and what is tested are the same thing. It is also wrongly thought that what is tested is what is taught in the classroom. Unfortunately, what students are tested on, don't always match up with the instructional content and objectives of the classroom. This is what is known as "testing-teaching mismatches". In a study done at Michigan State University almost 20 years ago, researchers found that as many as 50% of the items on a nationally standardized achievement test may cover topics that students wouldn't cover in the classroom. This disconnect between what the standardized tests are assessing and what the curriculum assesses needs to be cohesive in order for students to learn effectively.
When students are given a test, teachers often know beforehand what is going to be on that test or they have some kind of general idea of the concepts to be covered. They obviously want their students to do well, so they spend a lot of time covering those topics that are on the test. This is called "teaching to the test". This isn't so bad, but becomes a problem when teachers are forced to discard other topics they had planned on covering in order to spend more time on the concepts they know will be on the test. There is so much accountability for low-test scores that teachers do everything in their power to raise them. They drill students on what they will be tested on and they go beyond the curriculum only to teach test-taking skills, or what is called "testwiseness". When the curriculum is narrowed in such a fashion, students obviously lose out on a rich and full education.
Most standardized tests are multiple-choice. This focus on multiple-choice format limits teaching and learning to knowledge, at the expense of skills and abilities, such as critical thinking, creative thinking, and problem solving. If we continually encourage students to think in an "A,B,C, or D-None of the above" manner, they will never go beyond Piaget's Concrete Operational Thought into Higher-level thinking.
High stakes tests do not take into consideration the students with diverse backgrounds. Students with disabilities, test anxiety, non-English speakers, are culturally diverse, and of low socio-economic status struggle with these high-stakes tests. High-stakes tests are biased against all students. Test creators pick items for a test that will create score spread instead of items that measure something students are actually or should be taught. Most standardized tests are designed so that only half of the students taking the test will respond correctly to most of the items.
The behaviorist theory underlying high-stakes accountability oversimplifies how human behavior is conditioned by rewards and punishments. Decades of research has shown that extrinsic sources of motivation such as stars, stickers and grades actually undermine natural curiosity and a student's enjoyment of learning. Punitive consequences achieve temporary compliance at the cost of demoralizing teachers and students. The fundamental criticism of high-stakes accountability systems is that they rely excessively on extrinsic motivation at the expense of intrinsic motivation. Some of the negative consequences of high-stakes accountability systems include higher dropout and retention rates, lower motivation, teaching to the test, unethical test preparation, etc. Some reports of gains have been discredited as test-polluting practices such as excluding students or higher dropout rates.
High stakes testing have an obvious negative effect on students, teachers, curriculum, and schools. With all of the advances in technology today, there should also be advances in how was assess our students. I understand that there needs to be a way to make students, teachers, and parents accountable for their education and progress, but I do not believe that high stakes tests is the way to accomplish this goal. I do not have an alternative answer, let’s hope that new educators and test creators will create an assessment that matches curriculum and core content standards so that our students can prepare for the tests of life, not a life full of tests.
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