Standardized Testing and Education

January 7, 2010 by limako

I've been trying for a long time to capture what the use of standardized testing does to education. This is the best I've been able to do so far:

Rather than providing a well-rounded education, it asks educators to quit doing what makes sense and, instead, steal whatever time they might have otherwise used to engage in well-rounded learning to instead improve scores on the things that get measured. Making decisions based on standardized testing results pushes schools to do whatever will most cheaply cause those measures to respond.

It still falls short because we aren't really necessarily improving reading or math -- just the scores on the tests. Who cares if kids *can* read, if they don't (for example). What we really want, are well-functioning kids who are prepared to become life-long learners.