Major newspaper editorial boards love standardized testing. They write from a position of complete ignorance of how useless these tests are and how little information of value they produce. Recently the New York Times came out in favor of resuming the spring tests–even though the scores won’t be returned for several months–and now the Washington Post has endorsed the annual testing.
Peter Greene explains why they are wrong. If parents want to know how their children are doing, they should ask their children’s teachers. They know far more than a standardized test will show and can answer without waiting for six months.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane’s and Peter’s comments nail this. It’s shocking that these so-called journalists naively assume that the high-stakes standardized tests validly measure what they purport to measure. They don’t. They are a scam, they aren’t valid, they are useless pedagogically, they create enormous stress, they have lead to a dramatic devolution of curricula, and they divert enormous resources away from productive ends.
cx: led, ofc
Unfortunately, I don’t find it shocking at all.
Journalism as a profession has lost its way.
They should really take a long look in the mirror at themselves before they criticize anyone else.
Exactly right, authorities won’t let go of testing; too much money involved in testing, tech buys, machine scoring–revenue streams for powerful commercial enterprises; also, too big a discipline and control device to micro-manage from above what mass education does all the way below in the classroom; lastly, too important a race and class subterfuge for giving advantages to kids from white affluent families. What can stop the obscene drain on district budgets and on learning/teaching? Parent opposition along with teacher strikes. Parents withdrawing our kids and teachers withdrawing their labor will end the long shameful nightmare of testing, testing, testing.
An extremely lucrative scam
“It’s shocking that these so-called journalists naively assume that the high-stakes standardized tests validly measure what they purport to measure. They don’t.”
Thanks for the opening, Robert!
Why don’t they “measure what they purport to measure”?
Because they don’t measure anything to begin with!
“But, but surely you jest! Who are you to question the authorities, like the AERA, NAEP, APA, State Departments of Education, the Federal Department of Education that say they measure student learning and/or achievement?”
Yep, they measure nothing!
The most misleading concept/term in education is “measuring student achievement” or “measuring student learning”. The concept has been misleading educators into deluding themselves that the teaching and learning process can be analyzed/assessed using “scientific” methods which are actually pseudo-scientific at best and at worst a complete bastardization of rationo-logical thinking and language usage.
There never has been and never will be any “measuring” of the teaching and learning process and what each individual student learns in their schooling. There is and always has been assessing, evaluating, judging of what students learn but never a true “measuring” of it.
The TESTS MEASURE NOTHING, quite literally when you realize what is actually happening with them. Richard Phelps, a staunch standardized test proponent (he has written at least two books defending the standardized testing malpractices) in the introduction to “Correcting Fallacies About Educational and Psychological Testing” unwittingly lets the cat out of the bag with this statement:
“Physical tests, such as those conducted by engineers, can be standardized, of course [why of course of course], but in this volume , we focus on the measurement of latent (i.e., nonobservable) mental, and not physical, traits.” [my addition]
Notice how he is trying to assert by proximity that educational standardized testing and the testing done by engineers are basically the same, in other words a “truly scientific endeavor”. The same by proximity is not a good rhetorical/debating technique.
Since there is no agreement on a standard unit of learning, there is no exemplar of that standard unit and there is no measuring device calibrated against said non-existent standard unit, how is it possible to “measure the nonobservable”?
THE TESTS MEASURE NOTHING for how is it possible to “measure” the nonobservable with a non-existing measuring device that is not calibrated against a non-existing standard unit of learning?????
PURE LOGICAL INSANITY!
The basic fallacy of this is the confusing and conflating metrological (metrology is the scientific study of measurement) measuring and measuring that connotes assessing, evaluating and judging. The two meanings are not the same and confusing and conflating them is a very easy way to make it appear that standards and standardized testing are “scientific endeavors”-objective and not subjective like assessing, evaluating and judging.
Those supposedly objective results are used to justify discrimination against many students for their life circumstances and inherent intellectual traits.
Exactly
Teachers KNOW more than any test …. PERIOD.
Teachers also know more than any journalist — period (at least about education)
That final paragraph was incisive. What part of instruction do the test-obsessed zombies want me to cut? Exactly what do they want me to NOT teach so the students can instead take more tests that have no value?
People who care about test scores do not care about students.
The very idea that newspapers and other media organizations should be telling people which policies to support (on education, foreign policy, health care, war, etc, etc) and which to oppose is just completely antithetical to legitimate journalism.
Journalists who are usually not experts in anything should not be telling people what to do and how to think. They should be informing people and that’s it.
A perfect example of a journalist telling peopke what to do and think is NPRs Domenic Montenaro, who just effectively told his readership that impeachment is neither feasible nor desirable. He argued the latter by quoting that most unbiased person on the entire planet, Lindsey Graham!
It is wonderful that Peter Greene can share his wisdom and experience with non-educators by writing for ‘Forbes.’ Greene points out that learning is not like a production line, and students are not widgets in the line. Learning is complex and multi-faceted. Students come with their own experiences, capabilities and motivation. “Days of learning loss” is a naive, artificial construct designed by people that want to standardize education.
“Teachers are already struggling to cover ground this year; to ask them to sacrifice even more instruction to make room for a test of little or no utility is a bad choice.”
Anyone truly interested in helping students should reject the notion that learning can be measured by a standardized test. Standardized tests waste time and money, and they are not useful to teachers or students. High stakes standardized tests may harm students when the results are used to deny them access to various programs. The only beneficiaries of standardized testing are testing companies, data vendors and those that want to standardize education. Students are dealing with loss and disruption from a global pandemic. There is no logic to wasting more time on testing.
A correction: ““Teachers are already struggling to cover ground this year; to ask them to sacrifice even more instruction to make room for a test of ABSOLUTELY no utility is a bad choice.”
Why do teachers have to be so namby pamby in explaining the harms of the standards and testing malpractice regime? “Teachers are already struggling to cover ground this year; to ask them to sacrifice even more instruction to make room for a test OF LITTLE OR NO utility is a bad choice.”
No, no, no, no, no. The tests are of absolutely no value to the teaching and learning process. No value whatsoever. NONE! There is no need to play footsie with those who seek to destroy not only the teaching and learning process but public education at the same time through the standards and testing malpractice regime.
Quit playing nice in the sandbox when the bastards are beating you up!
There are not many mornings I wake up as a cock-eyed optimist….but….
Important note to Post Dispatch editorial board regarding education
Post by kjoe » 12 Jan 2021 08:59 am
As is often the case…..something noted by Diane Ravitch….expanded upon by others. Try being smarter than the New York Times and the Washington Post. Consider that new Ed Board member Antonio French used to partner with Peter Downs in Pub Def and St. Louis schools watch when Slay was Mayor—-it would not hurt any of you to sit down and talk to them. The testing industry is a big issue…..and we do not yet know how the Biden administration will deal with it.
I added the comments of Bob Shepherd and Yvonne.
If they talk to Antonio French and Peter Downs….they will learn something.
“we do not yet know how the Biden administration will deal with it.”
The it being standardized testing. And yes we do. Biden’s administration will continue with the full blown standards and testing malpractice regime with perhaps a brief lull in the actual testing this spring due to Covid, not due to doing the right thing by the students and the teaching and learning process.
They’re a waste of valuable instruction time, and a waste of taxpayer dollars. I thought the opt-movement would gain traction, apparently not.
“opt-out movement”
Not true. The Opt Out movement in New York is gearing up for a major push against mandated state testing this spring.
Can you please give us a reference to their site, and/or who to contact. Thanks!