FairTest: You can't judge learning with a standardized test

A short video challenging the use of high-stakes standardized tests to judge students and schools. Produced for the non profit organization FairTest. www.fairtest.org

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Testing
• Education
• Assessment
• Learning
• Fair
• FairTest
• High-stakes
• standardized
• nonprofit
• donate
• resource
• SAT
• ACT
• retentio

[zadeh79]

A lot of experts in the field of cognitive science disagree that conventional IQ tests , and standardized tests are measures intelligence. More recently, it has been shown by at least two studies, that measure of fluid intelligence have increased under short term, working memory, training sessions. The latest study was from Chinese researchers, whom showed a highly significant increase in fluid problem solving after a couple weeks of WM training. Your intelligence can increase temporarily.

[Andy4315]

My father was a used car salesman and he was highly offended by people judging a used car by their mileage . Judging children by standardised tests is as prejudiced as judging people by their looks .

[blueskydrive]

@dobermuffin As you move through an increasingly rapidly changing worldscape, you'll need all the critical thinking, creative approaching, and problem-solving you can muster.

[blueskydrive]

@dobermuffin The question isn't whether alternatives to tests are cheap or fast, but whether they are relevant and accurate. If we consider the full cost of standardized testing: not only materials but also student and teacher time devoted to preparing for them, they are extremely costly. If they are inaccurate or incomplete then that cost it multiplied. If our priority is to correctly assess our children's learning, we should properly prioritize spending.

[dobermuffin]

What we need to remember is that there are more things to consider than simply if these tests accurately measure learning. There's time, money, and equality to consider. The replacement for scan-tron tests needs to be cheap, fast, and fair for anyone taking the test. Once you've involved people to "judge" a students learning- budget vanishes, prejudices abound, and time goes out the window.

I'm a high school student soon to be a Junior. I don't enjoy tests. There just isn't a better way.

[dobermuffin]

I would definitely agree that testing needs to change. Standardized tests don't work very well, and the stressful "steam-cooker" atmosphere they produce is counter-productive.

Unfortunately, I just don't see any other way to fairly test students. Individual teachers have biases, "creativity" isn't needed for students to be successful in life, and the way their doing it now is the fairest way to test everyone on the subjects tested. I don't like it- I just don't see a practical alternative.

[kreshna81]

@drippingDuck2 Geez, a simple search on google or wikipedia would tell you there are many ways to measure creativity. Be more creative and do some research before leaving an LOL comment next time...

[drippingDuck2]

LOL then how do we test "creativity"

[dotyrs]

Well, youpie, this is already happening. Please do some research on "subjective" and "objective" testing! Students are, indeed, being graded on "essay writing" and "solving problems with extended response." "For profit companies" do NOT create standardized K-12 tests! ALL of the items are created by the school systems. Period. "For profit" companies simply help to collect the data. They do NOT create the tests!

[gdawgrapper]

While I agree that the education system in America has gaping flaws, I think that its success is unfairly judged in comparison with virtually every other country. Why? We are the only country that tests everybody. So when America's high school students' skills are compared to those around the world, we look worse because 100 percent of our students are being compared to only the best in the other countries. Something to think about.