For the past quarter-century, American policymakers have been laser-focused on raising test scores. They assumed that higher test scores equals better education equals better economy. The cost of all this testing was billions of dollars, which would have been better spent on reducing class sizes, raising teachers’ salaries, and updating schools.

From No Child Left Behind to Race to the Top to the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, federal policy has made standardized test scores the most consequential measure of all schooling. Every release of scores by the National Assessment of Educational Progress produces a flurry of articles with dire predictions about the future (“a Sputnik Moment!) or the discovery of a miracle (e.g. the Texas/Florida/Mississippi 4th grade reading miracle, which strangely disappears by the 8th grade).

But an occasional outbreak of wisdom cautions us that we are looking for “success” in the wrong place.

Paul Bonner is a retired educator. He posted the following comment on the blog.

My first personal encounter with NAEP was around 2005. I was an eighth grade assistant principal facilitating the process between my staff and the NAEP testing officials who were to give the test. As I monitored the hall during the testing of selected random students, it struck me how disinterested our students were in performing on the assessment. My school at the time was a high performing magnet program with a highly motivated student body. I assumed, incorrectly, that due to the competitive attitudes of our students that they would want to perform well, as I had with standardized assessments in the 1970s no matter what it meant concerning my academic standing. What I learned in this first encounter was that students were already fed up with standardized tests particularly if it had no bearing on their academic standing. These students made a habit of blowing away all of the state tests and for them NAEP was a waste of time. The idea of NAEP as a report card might be significant if students were not already wasting three weeks of their year with state and district tests. In other words, no student benefit so why bother. How does this give us an accurate read on student capacity? Second, none of the standardized assessments, international, national, state, or local have shown meaningful movement in student performance over the decades. A few points either way does not reveal any real change in instructional efficacy or evidence of greater learning opportunities for students no matter their circumstances. The realities remain the same. Students prepared for schooling or provided significant instructional and experiential resources perform well. Those who do not have such privilege do not. Policy makers and educational leaders are simply fooling themselves when denying that fact. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is telling in this regard. Piddling about a few point improvement in a NAEP test for fourth graders isn’t going to change the fact that Mississippi and other poor states provide far less opportunity for their students and poorer outcomes than wealthier states wiling to put more resources in the classroom. Testing has become a waste of time and money that could be better used elsewhere.