The concept of teaching to the test has long been held by many educators to be an inadequate methodology.
By Alessandra Profumo
There is growing concern among educators, myself among them, as well as parents across the nation, about the effectiveness, accuracy, and long term ramifications of President Obama’s, Race to the Top, as a core element of his nationwide school reform promise.
The basic premise that test scores are accurate indicators of a teacher’s effectiveness as an educator is in itself troubling. The idea that tests should be the primary measurement of a teacher’s success is not only folly, but a misunderstanding of the nature of education.
The Northwestern Evaluation Association, creators and marketers, of the standardized tests being used for these assessments, are the first to admit that their tests were never meant to be used for the evaluations of teachers. The statement posted on their own website states, “Measuring the effectiveness of a teacher or principal is a complicated endeavor, and it is one that cannot be adequately determined based on just one test. There are many factors—both input and outcome—that help determine effective teaching. And there are external drivers—such as poverty and English language learners—that play a strong role in the teaching and learning process.” The statement goes on to say, “…And just as we can agree that one exam is not the end-all, be-all measure of an individual student’s learning, we must also agree that one student test should also not be the solo measure of whether a teacher is doing an effective job or not.”
The concept of teaching to the test has long been held by many educators to be an inadequate methodology. Children and teachers alike, when forced to focus solely on a particular, finite goal, such as mastering information on a test, have neither the time nor inspiration to explore a subject to its fullest. The popular idea of “thinking out of the box” is the last thing a harried teacher wants his students to do when being faced with the unpleasant possibility of losing his job if students perform badly on standardized tests. There is no room for thinking out of the box when there is only one box with the correct answer.
A true education is one that reveals the tools necessary for creative problem solving. Children who are, at a young age dulled and discouraged from thinking for themselves, will find it doubly hard to engage in independent thought as adults. If standardized tests become the only measure of how a teacher should teach and the only indicator as to how much knowledge a child has absorbed, then I am afraid that we are doomed to a future of citizens who may not excel at creating new content to fill the tests but will excel at taking them.
