Celis 1

Ted Celis
Jim Nyenhuis
Writing 39C
27 April 2015
Failing Tests
Only in extremely rare circumstances would a program succeed whose purpose is to
create a systematic uniformity throughout a diverse and complex mass of people. Despite this,
standardized testing forms the core of many educational reform programs of the past and the
present. Standardized testing does have its uses, as it is mainly used for measuring the learning
and retention of students and dictating whether they are capable enough to progress to the next
grade level. But this usage of mere evaluation has been abused and overemphasized,
overshadowing and undermining many of the more useful benefits of testing. As shown in the
results of the No Child Left Behind Act and in the prospective practices to be implemented
within the Common Core State Standards Initiative, while testing can be used in a helpful
manner, the standardization of testing has misused and abused the goals of testing. Among all of
these methods of butchering purposeful tests in the educational atmosphere, one of the
overarching problems encompassing many of the other problems is the unnecessary amount of
time spent on test preparation and test taking.
There are two very distinctive sides to testing: formative assessments and summative
assessments. The main goal of formative assessments is to assess the learning and retention of
the pupil during the learning process so that the teacher can receive feedback about his or her
teaching effectiveness and students can receive feedback about his or her academic ability,
allowing both to make the adjustments necessary for class success (Assessment for Learning).

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Tests of this category include the low-stakes pretests and diagnostic tests, and while they are
useful for measuring learning ability before or during the school season in the ways shown above
(Roediger), the evaluation of academic progress at the end of learning is just as important. This
need is filled by summative assessments, which assess the learning and retention of the pupil
after the learning process so that teachers, school officials, district heads, and other policymakers
can use that information in deciding what actions to take for the future of the school system.
These tests include the high-stakes midterms, finals, and standardized tests such as those created
by The College Board and Pearson. The purposes of these tests differ greatly from formative
assessments; rather than improving the performance of schools, the goals of summative
assessments include the need to put a final grade on each student and to set up a strict system of
accountability within the educational world. Both the qualitative formative tests and quantitative
summative tests are important to the overall academic quality of schools in America, but an
equal, balanced amount of time needs to spent on each of them.
Unfortunately, many of the positive aspects of testing have turned into negative aspects
through excessive stress on only one of the two sides of testing. This problem began in January

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2002, when President George W. Bush signed the retrospectively oxymoronic No Child Left
Behind Act into existence and heavily inflated the importance of standardized testing (Jacob).
The issuance of this act has almost completely forgone the formative aspect of testing in favor of
an increased influence of the summative aspect of testing in order to establish the rather harsh
practice of test-based accountability and sanctions. By offering monetary rewards to schools that
perform well on the national standardized tests and threatening to close schools that perform
poorly on those tests, the nave efforts of the No Child Left Behind Act have unfortunately
proven ineffective in its goal of improving the academic status of America. Although there are
bodies of research committed to justifying the acts success by pointing out the increased
percentages on tests, further research by such organizations as the National Education
Association shows that such gains are either remarkably unimpressive (Jehlen) or, as data from

the Consortium on Chicago School Research has shown, are only due to possible lowered quality
of tests and increased test-taking skills without actual increased knowledge (Jacob). While it may
have made sense to the creators of the No Child Left Behind Act in theory, a more formidable
educational atmosphere that rewards schools that do not require help and punish schools that do
may not have been a good use of time or money in practice.

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The No Child Left Behind Act has shown how using tests improperly or excessively can
create more harm than benefit in the classroom. By setting up such an intimidating system of
accountability and expanding the collection of high-stakes tests within the nation, the federal
government has sponsored measurement-driven instructionmore commonly known as the
practice of teaching to test (Herman). The fact that this is a problem that exists as a result of
standardized testing is alone enough reason to worry about the implications of programs like the
No Child Left Behind Act, which takes away from what could be more creative and varied
lessons and instead encourages a narrower scope of learning simply because of the time
restriction to learn about content within a certain grade levels curriculum. Even classes that are
not as extreme in their pursuit of higher test scores suffer from a loss of instructional time caused
by the time needed to prepare for tests. According to a study by the American Federation of
Teachers regarding different school districts, test preparation like practice tests and lessons on
test-taking strategies takes up approximately eighty hours per year of students in grades three
through eight spend and about a hundred hours per year in grades six through eleven (Nelson).
Testing itself takes up roughly fifteen hours per year for students in grades three through ten and

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fifty-five hours per year for students in grades six through eleven, so in totaland not including
any other time-consuming testing activities that may not have been addressedtesting takes up
at least one thousand hours of a students lower educational lifetime.
America has realized almost no educational gains from standardized testing by looking at
global records from the inception of No Child Left Behind to the present. Meanwhile, between
the beginning of their educational reform policy and today, Finland has risen quickly to the top
of worldwide charts in the academic field. Unlike America, Finland does not put as much
emphasis on standardized testing: throughout all years of a Finnish students life, there is only
one government-mandated test to be taken (Equal Opportunities to High-Quality Education).
This is the matriculation examination, taken at the end of the upper secondary education as a
requirement for entrance into a university. Here, summative assessments are used as required and
not in excess, allowing adequate time for students to actually learn and for teachers to actually
teach instead of having to suffer chronic periods of test preparation. As a seemingly pointed
critique of nations who heavily rely on testing, a principal from the capital of Finland, Timo
Heikkinen commented, If you only measure the statistics, you miss the human aspect
(Hancock). Even the official website of the Finnish National Board of Education echoes this
rebuke, stating that in Finland, The focus in education is on learning rather than testing
(Equal Opportunities). Apparently practicing a balance between both sides of testing, a
decreased focus of summative assessments has increased time allowed for formative assessments
in Finland. With a sufficient amount of quality tests created by and based around the individual
teacher for his or her own students, this more individualized attention lets teachers spend less
time on needless evaluation and more time teaching.

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Attempting to adopt better academic methodology and learning from the mistakes of its
unsuccessful predecessor in a superficial sense, the Common Core State Standards Initiative is
the latest educational policy intended to increase the standards of education and the achievement
of students across America. As the No Child Left Behind Act did before it, Common Core relies
greatly on standardized testing to help in this goal. However, this relatively new program can
potentially reduce the number of tests given throughout the year (Darling-Hammond) by
replacing them with a smaller amount of supposedly better tests. Furthermore, Common Core
tests promise to promote more critical thinking by including more free response and other
complex questions rather than straightforward multiple-choice questions so that teachers could
receive feedback on their students understanding. Based on these theoretical claims, the new
system of accountability seems like a great improvement on the educational system by
introducing standardized formative testing, although in practice it will likely just degrade into a
more difficult instrument of accountability while wasting just as much time as other standardized
tests. As it is still a high stakes test that effects students, teachers, and schools, the influence of
standardized tests will likely be unchanged because the problem is that as long as there are
annual high-stakes tests, schools are going to prepare for them with their own tests (No Child
Left Behind: How to End Teaching to the Test). Along with a possible continuation of past
problems, the Common Core State Standards has created an entirely new set of potential
problems by merging education with new, untested technologies. Students in grades three
through ten are given eight and a half hours to complete these computerized tests, which can be
spread out over several days (Glenn), and while this could be cause for worry itself, the
effectiveness of computers over paper and the time required for teachers to learn the new
experimental technologies might be an even more harmful segment of the initiative. Still, in

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theory the tests could provide a truly successful educational reform; it seems to try to follow
Finlands emphasis of a balance between formative and summative assessment and even Finland
would not object to using technology to further educational achievement (Hancock). It is still too
early to tell whether the more complex but time consuming type of tests that Common Core uses
will yield results better than, worse than, or the same as the simple multiple choice tests found
predominantly in the era of No Child Left Behind, but at least it is a change of direction from
what has been proven ineffective.
There are two sides of testingthe developmental, formative side and the retrospective,
summative sideand the desertion or glorification of either side over the other is a detriment to
education. Without the latter, goals would be difficult to attain or even define, but without the
former, problems that could otherwise be solved would instead be easily overlooked. The No
Child Left Behind Act has shown how much of an impact that this imbalance could cause, and
while the Common Core State Standards Initiative appears to be attempting to lessen the power
held by summative testing, standardized testing still fundamentally favors the quantitative over
the qualitative. The exemplar of academic attainment, Finland, has shown that a governmental
oversight of education via a highly systematic and impersonal method of high-stakes testing is
unneeded and destructive for a proper educational system. The importance on the evaluation of
whether students are failing tests has erroneously directed attention away from the larger
problem of whether tests are failing students.

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Works Cited
"Assessment for Learning." The Journey to Excellence. Education Scotland, n.d. Web. 21 Apr.
2015.
Darling-Hammond, Linda. "For California Schools, We Need Less Testing and More
Assessing." Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. Stanford University, 14
Feb. 2012. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.
"Equal Opportunities to High-Quality Education." Education System. Finnish National Board of
Education, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.
Glenn, Sarah. "Spring Testing - What Parents Need to Know about New State Exams Taking
Place Now." Idaho State Journal (2015): n. pag. Access World News. Idaho State Journal,
16 Apr. 2015. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.
Jacob, Brian A. "Accountability, Incentives And Behavior: The Impact Of High-Stakes Testing
In The Chicago Public Schools." Working Paper 8968 (n.d.): n. pag. NBER. National
Bureau Of Economic Research, June 2002. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.
Jehlen, Alain. "NCLB: Is It Working?" NEA. National Education Association, 22 June 2009.
Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Hancock, LynNell. "Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?" Educating Americans for the 21st
Century. Smithsonian, Sept. 2011. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.
Herman, Joan, Jean Dreyfus, and Shari Golan. "The Effects Of Testing On Teaching And
Learning." UCLA Center for Research (n.d.): n. pag. Nov. 1990. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.
Nelson, Howard. "Testing More, Teaching Less." (n.d.): n. pag. American Federation of
Teachers. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

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"No Child Left Behind: How to End Teaching to the Test" LA Times. Los Angeles Times, 23
Feb. 2015. Web. 25 Apr. 2015.
Roediger, Henry L., III, Adam L. Putnam, and Megan A. Smith. "Ten Benefits of Testing and
Their Applications to Educational Practice." Cognition in Education. Vol. 55. San Diego,
CA: Elsevier/Academic, 2011. 1-36. Print.