Standardized tests are enjoyed by none, yet most institutions offering higher education still require them.
The SAT and ACT are rival testing companies, yet thousands of students each year opt to take both. Many colleges and universities use the tests to determine the level of course a student should take as well as what advisor the student may benefit from. While these may sound like good things, many students find the two tests irrelevant and irritating.
According to the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, standardized testing diminishes the overall approach to education by shifting away from experience-based learning and towards rote memorization.
The pandemic resulted in many institutions temporarily suspending their standardized testing requirement, including the University of Idaho. This was due to the diminished accessibility of testing centers and reduced number of proctors for the exams.
With many institutions adapting to the new world the pandemic has created, these limitations are less prevalent. This raises the question of whether colleges and universities will reinstate the required SAT, ACT and other standardized tests.
Students aren’t the only ones who oppose the tests, even teachers have a disdain for them.
Many of these tests are tied to outcomes like school funding, graduation and college acceptance. This places an immense amount of stress on a student, which can take a toll on their academic performance, leaving teachers to try and pick up the pieces.
Due to these tests being viewed as having such high stakes, they often drive what is taught in the classroom. This takes away the teacher’s autonomy in the classroom, while also removing all creativity and substituting it with memorization.
Standardized tests plague many schools, but there are some that have broken the mold and refuse the tests.
In 2021, an organization called FairTest took to demanding that standardized testing no longer be federally mandated. They adopted the motto “testing is not teaching,” in order to get their point across.
Additionally, the Every Student Succeeds Act is a federal act that recognizes parents’ rights to have their kids opt-out of standardized testing. As of Feb. 2018, ten states have implemented these opt-out laws, with Idaho being one of them.
FairTest seeks to educate the community about resources, like the ESSA, that can help phase out standardized testing.
In 2021, the Biden Administration released a statement saying that standardized testing must continue, their reasoning being that schools and parents alike need to see how the pandemic has impacted their students’ learning.
Many schools, parents, teachers and states have acknowledged the need to understand the pandemic’s impact on learning, but most feel there are better ways to accomplish this.
One alternative to standardized testing is the use of portfolios; by helping students compile a portfolio, their strengths, accomplishments and skills could be more accurately represented. This would provide educational institutions with a more accurate view as to what an individual student can bring to their institution.
Another alternative would be assessing schools and students through multiple measures, rather than the one test. By measuring schools based on graduation rates, demographics, teacher assessments and low-stakes tests schools and the organizations that fund them will be able to get a more holistic and accurate depiction of the school.
Standardized tests were once a valuable tool used to help students, teachers and institutions to succeed. Now, they are creating more problems than benefits and need to be replaced.
Mackenzie Davidson can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @mackenzie_films