Measuring How Fast a Fish can Climb a Tree - State Testing Edition
A few short years ago students took a standardized exam known as the “STAAR test.” The star test was administered to students of various grades within the the state of California in order to supposedly measure how well the school was teaching its students. Schools who had higher cumulative test scores received more funding and grants, schools who scored lower on exams receive less funding in order to help improve the quality of education. See a problem?
Then came a bunch of politicians and bureaucrats in Washington D.C. who posed as our knights in shining armour to change the system. Their claim was that they were going to completely change the system and create a one size fits all government approved solution that was supposed to completely rethink the way education standards are held within the United States.
States then began to opt into this new system known as “Common Core.” The purpose of Common Core was to create a cumulative set of standards for the entire nation in the subjects of english, mathematics, reading and science.
How would the States do this? By implementing yet another standardized test known as the The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium or SBAC. Now instead of individual States setting curriculums and administering tests for educators to teach to, almost the whole United States is doing it… for one curriculum and one test. The good news is that States can choose to opt in and out of the system right? Wrong, now the States that don't follow these new standards receive exponentially less funding from the federal government.
This is only the beginning considering that the federal government has no business within the realm of public education according to Amendment 10 of the United States Constitution.
Whether or not one thinks the federal government should oversee education, most of us can all agree that people learn, adapt, grow and perform on a variety of different levels. If so then all I ask is why are we holding all students to the same standard and trying to measure both cumulative knowledge and intelligence with one test. A test that in no way measures one's ability to think creatively or conduct a series of tasks one might encounter throughout their life. It doesn't measure, whether or not we can do our taxes, vote or even get a job. It does not measure our ability to spend money wisely and is reluctant to judge our ability to lead, innovate, and form an individual outlook on life. However, if you need an exam that slightly touches upon areas of abstract mathematics and science as practical as eating soup with a fork then the SBAC is perfect.
Unexisting practical merritt aside, why can't the SBAC test work? The simple answer is that there is no incentive to students in anyway to do good. Students are simply told that it helps the school see how we are doing. Yeah the first thing that popped into my mind when I heard that was ¨Oh boy I better do good so the school can get money and continue the broken cycle of public education.¨
