Accountability

Diane Ravitch at Education Week has written one of the most eloquent and succinct arguments I’ve read against the use of standardized testing as the only meter for accountability in schools. By making test scores the sole gauge of progress, one can expect to see cheating and test prepping, and other quasi-legitimate and outright [...]

Diane Ravitch at Education Week has written one of the most eloquent and succinct arguments I’ve read against the use of standardized testing as the only meter for accountability in schools.

By making test scores the sole gauge of progress, one can expect to see cheating and test prepping, and other quasi-legitimate and outright illegitimate ways of reaching the only goal that matters. When teachers, principals, and students are given rewards and punishments for only one measure, that measure may well rise, but at a cost.

What is the likely cost? What will be sacrificed—and is now being sacrificed—is an education of quality. Instead of educating students for post-secondary education, for a life of civic responsibility and for the modern workplace, we may instead send forth young people who have been cheated of an education. They were cheated because the only goal that counted was their score on a standardized test. They were cheated because the adults in charge of them were told that nothing else mattered—not their character, not their sense of civic duty, not their knowledge of history, geography, literature, or anything other than basic skills.

Interesting that Daniel Koretz (in his book “Measuring Up“) treats test-prepping as something that is just a step or two removed from cheating. Yet we know that many districts today spend a lot of time and money giving children “interim assessments” and preparing children for the all-important state tests. The question that remains unanswered is whether students would do just as well on tests for which they have not been “prepped.” The answer, I fear, is no, which means that whatever they learned through test prep was transient, did not transfer to other settings, and was to that extent fraudulent.

There has to be a better way to gauge how well the schools and teachers are educating the students, and how well the students are learning. After a few years of pondering and watching it in action, I’m still convinced that teaching to the test and narrowing curriculum and recess time to make room for said test-teaching (prepping, rote memorization, or whatever they’re calling it these days) isn’t the best plan.

I’ve been working on my own solution to this quandary; admittedly, it’s from way out in left field, but it just might be crazy enough to work. I’m wondering if perhaps increased funding in schools might be the catalyst that sets off a chain reaction of positives that in the end will result in better-educated students. A richer curriculum, better pay for teachers, art, music and computer programs, a return to normal recess times, decreased class size, etc. I realize my proposed solution is probably about as realistic as time travel and will in all likelihood discredit me utterly, but I figured I’d just put it out there.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

image credit: veer/james godman

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