We all remember the dread of knowing state testing was coming up. For me, I would already be annoyed that I have to take multiple hour-long tests, but what made it worse was that I never knew why I had to do it. I would ask my teachers, and the only answer I would ever get was that it was for data. But what data? I have continued to wonder from my first test in 3rd grade to now. This inspired me to research standardized testing and share it with you!
Examples of standardized tests are state tests, the SAT, the ACT, AP exams, and IB exams. In California, our state test is the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress. As the name states, the assessment measures your performance in a subject based on how accurate your answers were. If you have a low score in a specific standard, you can use sites like Khan Academy or Quizlet to find related subjects and improve your knowledge. It also shows your trends in how you compare to your past self. If you are curious about your results, in Infinite Campus, go to more on the sidebar and click assessments. Next, you can generate the links to the results of your past tests, all the way back to your first test in 3rd grade (unless you were opted out). Knowing where you stand can be helpful because it allows you to understand if you obtained the expected knowledge so you can make adjustments accordingly. Plus, it allows you to track your progress.
The way students and institutions use this standardized testing data is pretty similar; both look at trends and compare themselves to others to see where improvement must be made. These scores can show when pivots must be made in curriculums. Throwback to last week: If an entire group of students is consistently doing worse than another group, then it’s probably time to switch things up!! Schools, districts, and states look into the scores to see how their students perform by ethnicity, economic status, gender, housing situation, and disability status. This is part of what informs us of the achievement/opportunity gap. The SAT and the ACT were previously used to judge students’ qualifications for colleges. In recent years, however, many colleges stopped requiring SAT and ACT scores in applications after learning that these tests were outdated and created by people who believed different skin colors meant different mental capabilities. The SAT creator Carl Brigham influenced the eugenics movement. Standardized testing is not a fair assessment of a student, and nobody should judge themselves too harshly according to their results. It is a single measure of achievement, and students are multi-faceted learners.
Think about how a person with test anxiety can know all the necessary information but might panic and score really badly; a knowledgeable person is now seen as inadequate. Or someone who has not retained all the grade level information but has a lot of test-taking tricks and hacks, so they score very high. The results don’t define these people. The assessments don’t have any context to who you are. No need to dread the tests anymore because it doesn’t define you; they’re only tools you can use to understand where to improve!