------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 21, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- STANDARIZED TESTING: WHAT'S AT STAKE IN HIGH STAKES By Lyn Neeley Teacher at East Side Community H.S., New York City High-Stakes Tests produce a single numerical score to determine if a student passes to the next grade. Take this test: High-Stakes Tests are valuable to public education because they: [ ] a. prepare students for high-paying jobs [ ] b. help students pass high school [ ] c. raise the teaching standards in public schools [ ] d. develop "higher level" thinking skills [ ] e. are an accurate way of measuring intelligence If you're having trouble choosing a correct answer, you're not alone. The testing craze sweeping the country is full of empty promises that right-wing educators, politicians and testing corporations use to confuse the public. Standardized tests are being used to dismantle free public education, institutionalize racism and widen the gap between social classes. "My guess is that testing improves education the same way that bombing promotes democracy," said Steve Cohn, an education professor at Tufts. Standardized tests are turning schools into corporations where the bottom line is how well students do on the tests. Instead of raising standards, High-Stakes Tests dull down the curriculum--and the students' minds. Creativity, reasoning and analyzing skills are sacrificed when students are forced to memorize and regurgitate isolated facts and choose only one right answer. In order to pass the state-mandated tests, many schools are eliminating art, music and physical education to make time for test preparation classes that are more cost effective. Teachers who have to "teach to the test" become automatons, spending larger chunks of curriculum time giving tests and getting students ready for tests. In Montgomery County, Md., students spend 50 hours each year just taking tests. And that doesn't include Advanced Placement tests. Caleb Rossiter, who teaches statistics at American University, wrote, "If you could see how they waste students' time with all this test prep--it's so disheartening." Educator Peter Sacks explained, "Evidence strongly suggests that standardized testing flies in the face of recent advances in our understanding of how people learn to think and reason." One study showed that 77 percent of teachers feel that standardized tests are not worth the time and money spent on them. Many educators and reformers have developed alternative methods of authentic assessment. This kind of assessment, Sacks explained, is "the notion that students ought to be judged on the basis of what they can actually do, not how well they take tests. Also called performance assessment, these methods can mean anything from evaluating portfolios of student work or writing samples to art and science projects." Teachers are better than standardized tests at assessing the progress of students. BUSH'S HIDDEN AGENDA What's the real agenda behind the George Bush education agenda, which he dubs "No Child Left Behind"? Without mentioning any dollar figures, the plan calls for vouchers to promote private schools, and for standardized math and reading tests in grades three to eight. It also promises to "reward success" and "sanction failure" by introducing a program of merit pay for teachers and schools, based on test scores. Thus the tests will be used to grade teachers and principals, which the tests supposedly were not designed to do. High-Stakes Testing is cost effective. It serves as a smoke screen for policy makers, politicians and the media--and the business interests they all represent--to look as if they are raising the standards and improving schools. It covers up their failure to provide money for programs that would make real improvements. In fact, poor scores are being used as the rationale for leaving many children behind by cutting resources and privatizing schools, especially in poor, under-funded urban school districts. Teachers in New York City earn 25 percent less than those in the suburbs. Not a big draw to attract highly qualified teachers. New York City's school districts received $8,213 per capita for each student compared to the surrounding suburban districts, which get $12,050 per student. Money is needed for programs that are proven to help all children succeed. A good teacher and a well-run school mean far more to a child than another test. If public education is to be improved, class size must be reduced, financial incentives provided for the most qualified and experienced teachers. There must be teacher-training programs. The number of teachers of color must be increased. The schools need up-to-date materials, much-improved resources, more schools and better maintenance of school buildings. TESTING FLUNKS The New York Times recently reported, "The testing industry is coming off its three most problem-plagued years that have affected millions of students who took standardized proficiency tests." Writing and scoring tests is a new quarter-billion-dollar industry. It is dominated by four companies: CTB/McGraw- Hill, Harcourt, Riverside and NCS Pearson. To maintain profits these companies pay only $9 an hour to employees who work 12 hours a day, six days a week. Employees told the Times that they were "pressed to score student essays without adequate training and that they saw tests scored in an arbitrary and inconsistent manner. Lots of people don't even read the whole test--the time pressure and scoring pressure are just too great." In Minnesota last May, 47,000 students received lower scores than they deserved. Mistakes in the scores of standardized tests were questioned in Michigan, California, Arizona, Washington, Tennessee, Indiana and Nevada as well. After lies and attempts to cover up its mistakes, CTB/McGraw- Hill finally admitted to errors in scoring standardized tests. When Rudy Crew was hired as New York's school chancellor, it was largely because he had engineered a big increase in standardized test scores in Tacoma, Wash., in the early 1990s. In 1999, Crew and the New York Board of Education decided to raise the stakes for CTB test scores. Students who failed the tests would be required to pass summer school or be held back a grade. School principals and superintendents could lose their jobs if students scored poorly. When devastating results came back, it looked as if reading scores had stagnated for two years. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani fired Crew soon afterward. Now it has been proven that 9,000 of the New York schoolchildren who were forced to attend summer school in 1999 shouldn't have been there. They had been mistakenly scored too low by CTB. BUILT-IN RACIST BIAS African American and Latino students are disproportionately failing standardized tests. "It's revealing that standardized tests have their origins in the Eugenics movement earlier in this century and its belief in the intellectual superiority of northern European whites," Barbara Minor writes in "Rethinking Schools." The "standardized tests didn't really exist until it was decided that IQ and similar tests were a valid way to identify 'superior' and 'inferior' students," she continued. "Standardized tests legitimize and preserve existing power relations." Recent studies show that people taking the SAT college admission test will score an extra 30 points for every $10,000 in their parents' yearly income. A study of California high-school students revealed that parent education alone explained more than 50 percent of the variation in SAT scores. A principal at a school on New York 's Lower East Side said: "Let's be honest. If poor, inner-city children consistently out scored children from wealthy suburban homes on standardized tests, is anyone naive enough to believe that we would still insist on using these tests as indicators of success?" Standardized tests will prevent thousands of students from graduating from high school, especially in under-funded urban schools with predominantly students of color. These young people will become members of the growing pool of non-skilled, underpaid workers that capitalism needs to maximize profits. Or they will become part of the profitable prison-industrial population and receive no salary--creating more wealth for the ruling class. Emphasizing standardized testing does not train students to be critical thinkers. A hidden agenda of the testing craze is the movement to eliminate anti-racist, multicultural education that arms young people with an understanding of themselves, their cultures and the contradictions of being poor in the leading industrialized country. A hundred years ago capitalism needed to take rural agricultural workers and turn them into a disciplined work force to run its factories. That's when the promise of universal, free education became a mandate. Forty years ago, when businesses needed workers for an expanding service economy, it produced a boom in community and junior colleges. But in today's high-tech society fewer educated, skilled workers are needed. The main purpose of standardized testing is to sort students according to criteria set by the bosses. Take this test: What's at stake if the schools continue to use high-stakes standardized testing? Answer: A free, well-rounded education for all students. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. 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