Nancy Flanagan is one of the nation’s premier teachers and bloggers. Unlike many who opine about education (I include myself in that category), Nancy knows teaching inside and out. She was a music teacher for thirty years and was deeply involved in creating National Board Certification for teachers. Now she blogs for Education Week and she is always informative.
When a Washington, D.C., think-tank person suggested that students of the arts should be assessed by standardized, multiple-choice tests, Nancy was properly incensed. (And so were many of the teachers of the arts who commented on this blog.)
In her commentary, Nancy posed a basic question:
Why would we deliberately advance a worthless (and expensive-to-develop) mode of assessment for something as crucial to kids’ well-being and our own economic vitality as the arts? The humanities are a creative wellspring for individual and social innovation. They cannot–and should never be–reduced to rote, bubbled-in recitation of dry facts. What standardized testing in music and the arts yields is mere quantification of students’ ability to memorize. The tests tell us nothing about how students will apply artistic skill and expression to their real lives and careers. Further–they tell us nothing about the instructional quality of their teachers.
Nancy quite rightly criticizes the view that the only way to “save” the arts is to make sure that they are tested by bubble tests. I have heard the same argument from history teachers, and I think it is self-defeating. If you want to save your subject, don’t sacrifice it on the altar of standardized testing. There is no surer way to discourage students of the arts and students of history than to expect them to be judged by bubble tests. There are certainly far more rigorous and appropriate means to assess skills and knowledge than the cheap and easy computer-based and computer-scored questions.
As I read Nancy’s article, I found myself remembering a segment I saw several weeks ago on 60 Minutes. It was about a ragtag symphony orchestra in Africa. One man who loved orchestral music recruited the musicians (none of whom knew how to play anything), found or begged or made instruments, and taught them to play. The musicians left their daily work to study and practice and play together. The segment concluded with a large number of very joyful men and women–living in a desperately poor nation–playing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”
What a triumph of the human spirit!
Why would anyone give them a standardized test?
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Right on, Diane!
I am a retired music teacher like Nancy. I will ask just one question…….how do you assess the value of the arts(and other electives) in terms of how they encourage kids to not miss school and to not drop out? These two “values” have nothing to do with the “book” knowledge students gain in such classes. Many of my students would not have done weil on a bubble test since many of them were special ed, but they persevered and became solid musicians. How do you measure that?
time and again parents would tell me that their kid got up in the morning for one thing……music.
for 30 years a line of parents would tell me that what saved their kid from leaving school altogether was . . . . . . music.
ditto.
robyn
In addition to my work as a school principal, I am a musician and have a deep devotion to maintaining the importance of the arts in our schools. It is very disturbing to think we have to embark on this misadventure in order to validate something that cannot be validated through multiple choice tests. When will people begin to discuss the fact that the emperor has no clothes?
The arts are best served in the schools by a balance of creativity and art principles. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Phonics AND whole language. Math basics AND problem solving. Knowledge AND skills. An overview of historical timelines AND depth in historical events. Fiction AND non-fiction. Creative writing AND clarity in writing. Sentence flow AND grammar. Knowledge of geographical places AND man-made and environmental changes. Advanced classes AND help for kids behind. And on and on.
The world is not made up of either-or choices, but is a complex mixture of everything, most of which can not be tested, and good education needs to take this into account. Geez, is this so hard to see?
I don’t think this is hard to see, but getting the combination right is a challenge.
I enjoyed Nancy’s piece. I offer a different though not opposing viewpoint (it’s a longish blog):
http://open.salon.com/blog/dianasenechal/2012/06/21/no_to_multiple-choice_music_tests_but
Multiple-choice tests are ill suited to music instruction, yet we need some sort of standardization at the beginning levels, particularly in instrumental instruction, so that young people can master the fundamentals and make beautiful music. By this I do not mean absolute standardization, but rather some basic principles of technique that are understood and taught across the board.
Keep saying AND! We need history, math, science, languages, etc. AND the arts!
I feel like the bureaucrats at the state and federal level are dedicated to removing or destroying anything that makes students want to be in school.
I hate the word rigorous! I enjoyed teaching and I adored my students, but the current obsession with measuring “progress” and making sure our instruction is sufficiently “rigorous” is sucking the life out of teaching and learning. There is no way to measure the light in a student’s eyes when the switch is flipped (and I hope there never is!).
I wish the strange method of assessment were limited to 2012 and to our K-12 students.
In college, I changed majors because Communication Studies assessed our learning by using multiple choice tests for lower division students at the University of California system. This seemed strange.
Somehow, everyone knows that multiple choice tests do not really measure what we know. Everyone knows that the scores are not used to change instruction (probably because everyone knows that the scores are mostly meaningless), yet we still use these scores.
Americans are trying to close some achievement gap. Many of the people who are trying to close this gap send their kids to private schools with vibrant art and music programs.