Government-Mandated Standardized Tests For Schools

What are standardized tests? Why do students take them?

Standardized tests are assessments administered to students and adults under controlled and regulated conditions to assess an individual’s knowledge, skills, and aptitude. These tests require all test takers to answer the same or selected questions from a bank of possible questions. These tests also have a standard manner of scoring that allows for scores/performances to be compared to the other individuals who took the same test.

As the figure below shows, standardized tests consume a significant portion of the school year – for high school students, about ten days a year out of a total school year of about 180 days. This estimate excludes additional class time to prepare for the exam.

‍

Standardized testing was created for two primary reasons: to provide a quantitative measure of a student’s academic performance and to evaluate the performance of teachers, schools, and school districts. Using these tests helps establish a consistent benchmark for the level of achievement that should be met at each grade level, ensuring the same criteria are used for all students. In this way, standardized tests can be used to rank students for assignment to honors classes or to flag students who might benefit from additional resources.  

To evaluate the performance of teachers, schools, and school districts, individual test results are averaged to measure overall student performance. The goal is to identify which schools or teachers are especially effective in helping students learn. These results can be used to identify effective teaching techniques and learning environments that can be transferred to other schools. The other goal is incentivizing teachers and administrators to teach well, especially if school funding and teacher pay are tied to test results.

What is the federal government’s role in standardized tests?

At the federal level, the U.S. Department of Education collects standardized test data and gives each state a “report card” on the academic performance of local schools. Congress mandates that this report card be issued every two years for each state. The state governments each choose the specific assessment to be administered in reading, math, and science, meaning that the standardized tests used in a particular year vary across states. Local school districts must administer these tests to receive federal education funding. The results of these tests are aggregated into a “state report card” by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Underperforming schools can lose some federal education funding.  

Do mandated standardized tests work as intended?

The evidence is mixed. One problem is that federal policies designed to reward well-performing schools do not provide strong incentives to teachers and administrators. The federal government provides about 8% of K-12 school funding, so the consequences of cutting this assistance are small. In any case, cutting funding for a school with problematic test results may make it harder for them to hire good teachers, modify curriculums, and enhance their learning environments to improve test results.

The incentives are also small at the state level. The largest source of school funding in most districts is local property taxes. Thus, state governments have only modest rewards and punishments they can use in response to test results. Some states tie standardized test results to teacher pay so that teachers with high-performing students receive bonuses. Research on the effects of incentive-based teacher pay suggests connecting teacher pay to standardized test performance can result in higher test scores.

At the same time, there are two critiques of using standardized tests in this way. One is that standardized tests may not be a good measurement of student performance, progress, or gaps in knowledge. If so, we may not be measuring actual achievement by working to improve standardized test scores. Other critics contend that standardized tests are neither objective nor accurate as non-academic factors, including access to health care, food insecurity, or poverty-related stress, can negatively impact test performance. As a result, schools with a disproportionate number of poor students may be penalized for low test scores, even though teachers are doing a good job and students are learning.  

An additional problem is a reliance on standardized tests to distribute funding or teacher bonuses may lead teachers to curve test scores or “teach to the test” – which may emphasize a narrow range of test-taking skills, devote excessive class time to practice exams and de-emphasize important areas of knowledge that are not included on the standardized tests. In extreme cases, some teachers and administrators have even been convicted for stealing test answers and distributing them to their students.

‍