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Is the use of standardized tests improving education in America?
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Standardized tests have been a part of American education since the mid-1800s. Their use skyrocketed after 2002's No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) mandated annual testing in all 50 states. US students slipped from 18th in the world in math in 2000 to 31st place in 2009, with a similar decline in science and no change in reading. Failures in the education system have been blamed on rising poverty levels, teacher quality, tenure policies, and increasingly on the pervasive use of standardized tests.

Proponents say standardized tests are a fair and objective measure of student achievement, that they ensure teachers and schools are accountable to taxpayers, and that the most relevant constituents – parents and students – approve of testing.

Opponents say the tests are neither fair nor objective, that their use promotes a narrow curriculum and drill-like "teaching to the test," and that excessive testing undermines America's ability to produce innovators and critical thinkers. Read more...

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Pro & Con Arguments
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Standardized Tests ProCon.org is a nonpartisan, nonprofit website that presents facts, studies, and pro and con statements related to standardized tests. This pro-con debate explores the use of "high-stakes" standardized tests in US elementary and secondary schools, and does not address college admissions tests such as the SAT, ACT, and GRE.
Did You Know?
  1. Following the passage of NCLB on Jan. 8, 2002, annual state spending on standardized tests rose from $423 million to almost $1.1 billion in 2008 (a 160% increase compared to a 19.22% increase in inflation over the same period), according to the Pew Center on the States. [42]

  2. 93% of studies have found student testing, including the use of large-scale and high-stakes standardized tests, to have a "positive effect" on student achievement, according to a peer-reviewed, 100-year analysis of testing research completed in 2011 by testing scholar Richard P. Phelps. [138]

  3. On Mar. 14, 2002, the Sacramento Bee reported that "test-related jitters, especially among young students, are so common that the Stanford-9 exam comes with instructions on what to do with a test booklet in case a student vomits on it." [8]

  4. China, a country with a long tradition of standardized testing, topped all countries in the international rankings for reading, math, and science in 2009 when it debuted on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) charts. [150]

  5. The current use of No. 2 pencils on standardized tests is a holdover from the 1930s through the 1960s, when scanning machines scored answer sheets by detecting the electrical conductivity of graphite pencil marks. [73] [74]
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Pro & Con Arguments: "Is the use of standardized tests improving education in America?"
PRO Standardized Tests
  1. 93% of studies have found student testing, including the use of large-scale and high-stakes standardized tests, to have a "positive effect" on student achievement, according to a peer-reviewed, 100-year analysis of testing research completed in 2011 by testing scholar Richard P. Phelps. [138]

  2. Standardized tests are reliable and objective measures of student achievement. Without them, policy makers would have to rely on tests scored by individual schools and teachers who have a vested interest in producing favorable results. Multiple-choice tests, in particular, are graded by machine and therefore are not subject to human subjectivity or bias. [55]

  3. A Nov. 2010 report by McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, found that school systems in 20 countries "that have achieved significant, sustained, and widespread gains" on national and international assessments, including Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea, had used "proficiency targets for each school" and "frequent, standardized testing to monitor system progress." [146]

  4. Standardized tests are inclusive and non-discriminatory because they ensure content and testing conditions are equivalent for all students. Former Washington, DC, schools chancellor Michelle Rhee argues that using alternate tests for minorities or exempting children with disabilities would be unfair to those students: "You can't separate them, and to try to do so creates two, unequal systems, one with accountability and one without it. This is a civil rights issue." [103]

  5. China, with its long tradition of standardized testing, leads the world in educational achievement. China displaced Finland as number one in reading, math, and science when Shanghai debuted on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings in 2009. [150] Despite calls for a reduction in standardized testing, China's testing regimen remains firmly in place. [139] Chester E. Finn, Jr., Chairman of the Hoover Institution's Koret Task Force on K–12 Education, predicts that Chinese cities will top the PISA charts for the next several decades. [150]

  6. "Teaching to the test" can be a good thing: it simply means focusing on essential content and skills, eliminating time-wasting activities that don't produce learning gains, and motivating students to excel. [18] The US Department of Education stated in Nov. 2004 that "if teachers cover subject matter required by the standards and teach it well, then students will master the material on which they will be tested--and probably much more." [19]

  7. Standardized tests are not narrowing the curriculum, rather they are focusing it on important basic skills all students need to master. According to a study in the Oct. 28, 2005, issue of the peer-reviewed Education Policy Analysis Archives, teachers in four Minnesota school districts said standardized testing had a positive impact, improving the quality of the curriculum while raising student achievement. [116]

  8. Increased testing does not force teachers to encourage "drill n' kill" rote learning. According to a study in the Oct. 28, 2005, issue of the peer-reviewed Education Policy Analysis Archives, good teachers understand that "isolated drills on the types of items expected on the test" are unacceptable, and principals interviewed said "they would sanction any teacher caught teaching to the test." [116] In any case, research has shown that drilling students does not produce test score gains: "teaching a curriculum aligned to state standards and using test data as feedback produces higher test scores than an instructional emphasis on memorization and test-taking skills." [18]

  9. Parents of school-age children believe standardized tests are improving American education. [2] A 2005 Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll found that 60% of public school parents say the emphasis on testing in their local schools is either "about right" or that there is "not enough" testing. [3]

  10. The US Department of Education stated: "Although testing may be stressful for some students, testing is a normal and expected way of assessing what students have learned." [19] A Nov. 2001 University of Arkansas study found that "the vast majority of students do not exhibit stress and have positive attitudes towards standardized testing programs." [5] Young students vomit at their desks for a variety of reasons, but only in rare cases is this the result of testing anxiety. [6]

  11. Students believe standardized tests are fair. A June 2006 Public Agenda survey of 1,342 public school students in grades 6-12 found that 71% of students think the number of tests they have to take is "about right" and 79% believe test questions are fair. [22] The 2002 edition of the survey found that "virtually all students say they take the tests seriously and more than half (56 percent) say they take them very seriously." [108]

  12. Most teachers acknowledge the importance of standardized tests and do not feel their teaching has been compromised. In a 2009 Scholastic/Gates Foundation survey, 81% of US public school teachers said state-required standardized tests were at least "somewhat important” as a measure of students’ academic achievement, and 27% said they were "very important " or "absolutely essential." [111] 73% of teachers surveyed in a Mar. 2002 Public Agenda study said they "have not neglected regular teaching duties for test preparation." [108]

  13. Standardized tests provide a lot of useful information at very low cost, and consume little class time. [134] According to a 2002 paper by Caroline M. Hoxby, PhD, the Scott and Donya Bommer Professor in Economics at Stanford University, standardized tests cost less than 0.1% of K-12 education spending, totaling $5.81 per student per year: "Even if payments were 10 times as large, they would still not be equal to 1 percent of what American jurisdictions spend on education." [135] Other cost estimates range from $15-$33 per student per year by the nonpartisan US Government Accountability Office (GAO), to as low as $2 per student per year by testing scholar and economist Richard P. Phelps. [55] A 50-item standardized test can be given in an hour [134] and is graded instantaneously by computer.

  14. Minnesota teachers and administrators interviewed for a study in the Oct. 28, 2005, issue of the peer-reviewed Education Policy Analysis Archives (EPAA) approved of standardized tests "by an overwhelming two-to-one margin," saying they "improved student attitudes, engagement, and effort." [116] An oft-cited Arizona State University study in EPAA's Mar. 28, 2002 edition, concluding that testing has little educational merit, has been discredited by educational researchers for poor methodology, and was criticized for wrongly blaming the tests themselves for stagnant test scores, rather than the shortcomings of teachers and schools. [152]

  15. The multiple-choice format used on standardized tests produces accurate information necessary to assess and improve American schools. According to the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, multiple-choice questions can provide "highly reliable test scores" and an "objective measurement of student achievement." [131] Today's multiple-choice tests are more sophisticated than their predecessors. The Center for Public Education, a national public school advocacy group, says many "multiple-choice tests now require considerable thought, even notes and calculations, before choosing a bubble.” [39]

  16. Stricter standards and increased testing are better preparing school students for college. In Jan. 1998, Public Agenda found that 66% of college professors said "elementary and high schools expect students to learn too little.” By Mar. 2002, after a surge in testing and the passing of NCLB, that figure dropped to 47% "in direct support of higher expectations, strengthened standards and better tests.” [34] [108]

  17. Teacher-graded assessments are inadequate alternatives to standardized tests because they are subjectively scored and unreliable. Most teachers are not trained in testing and measurement, and research has shown many teachers "consider noncognitive outcomes, including student class participation, perceived effort, progress over the period of the course, and comportment," which are irrelevant to subject-matter mastery. [105]

  18. Cheating by teachers and administrators on standardized tests is rare, and not a reason to stop testing America's children. The Mar. 2011 USA Today investigation of scoring anomalies was inconclusive, and found compelling suggestions of impropriety in only one school. [118] It is likely that some cheating occurs, but some people cheat on their tax returns also, and the solution is not to abolish taxation. [152]

  19. Each state's progress on NCLB tests can be meaningfully compared, even though tests are developed by states independently. State scores are compared with results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), ensuring each state's assessments are equally challenging and that gains in a state's test scores are valid. [57]

  20. State-mandated standardized tests help prevent "social promotion," the practice of allowing students to advance from grade to grade whether or not they have met the academic standards of their grade level. [136] A Dec. 2004 paper by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research found Florida's 2002 initiative to end social promotion, holding back students who failed year-end standardized tests, improved those students' scores by 9% in math and 4% in reading after one year. [137]

  21. Many objections voiced by the anti-testing movement are really objections to NCLB's use of test results, not to standardized tests themselves. Prominent testing critic Diane Ravitch, Research Professor of Education at New York University, concedes standardized testing has value: "Testing... is not the problem... information derived from tests can be extremely valuable, if the tests are valid and reliable." She cites the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) as a positive example, and says tests can "inform educational leaders and policy-makers about the progress of the education system as a whole." [1]

  22. Physicians, lawyers, real-estate brokers and pilots all take high-stakes standardized tests to ensure they have the necessary knowledge for their professions. [23] If standardized tests were an unreliable source of data, their use would not be so widespread.
CON Standardized Tests
  1. Standardized testing has not improved student achievement. After NCLB passed in 2002, the US slipped from 18th in the world in math on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to 31st place in 2009, with a similar drop in science and no change in reading. [95] [145] [144] A May 26, 2011, National Research Council report found no evidence test-based incentive programs are working: "Despite using them for several decades, policymakers
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