Commentary: Don’t be too quick to view tests as waste of time

By Alex Keeley

For The Herald

As the school year wound down, students were engulfed in the chaos of standardized testing.

It is received differently by students, who each have their own response. Some get stressed, whereas some don’t see it as any different than a normal test. Many people dislike it because of the seemingly pointlessness of the whole endeavor; consequently the effort level is at a low point.

But the use of standardized testing, and the analysis of the scores has substantial significance. Not just used to measure student and teacher performance, standardized testing is beneficial overall because it allows the schools to identify potential weaknesses, as well as letting the state intervene and allocate funds to districts with lower test scores. The fact about standardized testing is that it is just one of the many parts of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which seeks to better education in all phases.

Many people dislike standardized testing because they feel it is worthless. Their scores are the same every year, and the content is often below the level of that taught in class. For example, a lot of teachers have to go out of their way at the end of the year to review content for the tests, which the class actually learned a year ago.

The tests are only used for the students as graduation requirements, and students have multiple attempts at taking them, adding to the general feeling that they are not worth it. Many parents and students voice their concerns about this version of testing, and how they don’t think it is effective in analyzing student’s progress. But many of these kids will take the SAT, which is the definition of a standardized test. The SAT has been around for 92 years, and has since been used as one of the measurements that colleges use when considering applicants. So to those that dislike the “new” implementation of standardized testing, it’s been going on for longer than many have been alive. About 3 million kids take the SAT each year, and they don’t complain when it gets them admitted into a college.

It’s important to remember that the ESSA is not just about standardized testing. Its goal is to make sure everybody succeeds. But people have been against the implementation of testing for years, including the duration of the No Child Left Behind Act.

A number of parents feel that standardized tests lead teachers to “teach to the test,” which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Now, if the argument is that the tests that these kids are taking are not what is being taught in their specific class, then that is a fair argument, and is a result of the crossing of federal and state standards.

Still, only 26 percent of the public viewed the No Child Left Behind Act as making schools worse, and the ESSA is slated to build on that and make education even better.

One of the knocks people have on standardized testing and federal standards is that they are taking away from the other facets of the school system. Many people believe it is the state’s fault when the arts programs or certain classes are taken away from schools, and they blame that on the standardized testing, as illustrated in an editorial cartoon by David Horsey that shows kids plugged into a testing machine, while a lone student looks out a window longingly at subjects such as the arts and physical education. But this is completely false.

In the majority of cases, the schools are cutting these programs because their district, or the state, can’t fund it because of a lack of money, not because of the ESSA. In fact, when the bill was signed at the end of 2015, $1.6 billion was set toward, “[consolidating] dozens of programs, including some involving physical education, Advanced Placement, school counseling, and education technology,” Education Week reported in 2016.

Testing is another part of the ESSA that is supposed to help the student. Reporter Alyson Klein in the Education Week article explains that the test scores as well as graduation rates are compiled for each district and submitted to the state. The state must then intervene with the bottom 5 percent of the districts, coming up with a plan to fix the problem and allocate funds toward what is needed to help the students and staff.

This is furthering the education of kids who are in schools that would have otherwise been consistent bottom dwellers for the duration of the school career. But the intervention helps the school and staff improve, and give that same student a better education and ready him or her for the real world after school. So the testing not only helps the district evaluate the student, but also helps the state evaluate the district.

So, although state testing may be less important for districts with high test scores that will never be in the bottom 5 percent, such as Lake Stevens, it is still important in the grand scheme of things to implement the test for all students in Washington.

The Every Student Succeeds Act is too new to fully judge the results and how successful it has been, but the overall goal and allocation of funds is aimed at providing a well-rounded education, and to help each student succeed in all possible ways.

Alex Keeley will be a junior this fall at Lake Stevens High School.