My Opinion on Standardized Testing

Testing for Intelligence

This week’s blog is on the topic of testing children’s intelligence.  Should the tests be assessments of the whole child and how much should we rely on standardized test to tell us.  We have all had to endure the standard tests that tested our aptitude.  But as children, we didn’t understand that we were being tested on “the potential to master a specific skill or to learn a certain body of knowledge.”  (Berger, 2009, p. 323).  We just knew that we hated the tests.  Today’s standardized testing is not just meant to give a benchmark score of where a child falls in accordance to their peers.  Now these tests determine if a child will progress in school and in life.  Children in Florida have grown to dislike testing and have to actually pass the tests in order to move to another grade or to graduate from high school.

I believe that children should be tested for intelligence but those tests should not be the determinate of how their life should proceed.  Standardized test put them all in a pot and says if you are not at this level you are not smart enough to go to another grade or even to graduate.  Many developmentalists are against testing.  Armour-Thomas & Gopaul-McNicol (1998); Cianciolo & Sternberg (2004) state that they argue that no test can measure potential without also measuring achievement and that every test score reflects the culture of the people who wrote, administer, and take it (as cited by Berger 2009).

My son almost didn’t graduate from high school as a result of his scoring on a standardized test.  He suffered from test anxiety and had never performed well on aptitude testing.  Thankfully he had an IEP which took in account that he showed mastery of subjects.  He received a standard diploma as a result of his IEP.  However, many children were not as blessed.   When the State of Florida decided to link test scores to the decision of whether you passed a grade or graduated; this affect many families.  Children were held back from progressing in school because they couldn’t pass the test but had good grades.  Many seniors were denied the opportunity to graduate because they had good grades but didn’t meet the level the test required.

Intelligence testing is conducted on children as early as infancy.  These test that we complete on infants, toddlers, and preschoolers give up indications of normal development.  If a child scores low we do activities to help the child progress.  If the child still is low at the next testing then we seek additional help for the child.  I believe the testing and results should be handled the same way for the school-aged child.  However, it is now considered a pass/fail test and causes many children to suffer with stress in relation to the tests.  Children that are held back as a result of test results are suffering criticism from peers and are having issues of low self-esteem as a result. 

Standardized testing is mandatory in the United States.  Many blame the No Child Left Behind Act because since its acceptance, many children have been left behind.  However, the country of Finland chose to outlaw the standardize testing for students and allow teachers to be creative in how the students are taught. “In the 1980s: Finland abolished standardized tests. Instead of test-based accountability in schools, the country—because of the high quality of its teaching force—had a trust-based system to allow teachers a certain freedom to teach with creativity.”  (Sahlberg, 2010).  Finland has top ranking in the world for their school system. “Finland has achieved an arguably greater accomplishment: it has the top-ranked school system in the world (PISA survey, conducted by OECD).”  Sahlberg, 2010).   I think the US should look at how Finland is operating and take on some of their policies.

References:

Berger, K. S. (2009).  The Developing Person through Childhood.  (5th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers

Sahlberg, P. (2010, April 27).  AsiaSociety.org. What Accounts for Finland’s High School Achievement Rate.  Retrieved from Asia Society website:  http://asiasociety.org/education/learning-world/what-accounts-finlands-high-student-achievement-rate