Tests alone not adequate to judge student’s knowledge,

teacher’s skill
heraldnet.com/opinion/tests-alone-not-adequate-to-judge-students-knowledge-teachers-skill/

April 17, 2015

As spring emerges in the Puget Sound region, students, parents and educators alike are
turning their focus to the latest and greatest version of Washington state’s student
assessments. While standardized tests can be a productive measure of certain aspects of a
student’s competency, they are by no means a panacea or always an accurate predictor of a
student’s success in the future.

Each and every child has a unique and special gift; however, it is an absolute fallacy to
believe that we all possess the same abilities or that we have been given the same
opportunities to thrive. Some of the greatest athletes, musicians, artists, inventors and
scientists have been academically challenged. Case in point: it has been reported that
Albert Einstein suffered from dyslexia and did not flourish during his early education.

Many of our children are coming from environments that contain abuse and poverty of
some form or another that can also inhibit a student’s educational progress. There is a
direct correlation between a parent’s education level and the academic success of their
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children. That is why we typically see higher test scores in Bellevue, Mercer Island and
Medina, as opposed to White Center, Enumclaw or Auburn.

A child’s education is the cumulative sum of a host of factors, including the parent’s
involvement and educational levels, socio-economic levels, dysfunction within the home,
competent teachers throughout their education, appropriate district resources and
inherent intelligence and abilities. The movement to evaluate a teacher’s competency
based upon many issues that the teacher may not have any control over is blatantly unfair
and shortsighted.

If a student arrives at school and is affected with a learning disability and their family has
been forced to move four or five times in the previous three years due to financial issues,
there is a greater likelihood that this student has gaps within their basic educational
foundations. When parental substance abuse is factored into this equation, this becomes an
insurmountable obstacle to teach this student the fundamentals within a fifty minute class
period; they are playing catchup throughout the year. This does not even begin to address
the students whose parents speak little or no English.

The states that have adopted the Common Core standards have reported that within 21
states submitting information, up to 70 percent of students fail these tests upon their first
attempt. This is certainly not a rousing success and does not necessarily provide the data
required to make appropriate adjustments to the overall curriculum. It should also be
noted that not all teachers will be evaluated based upon these test scores because these
tests only encompass math, science, reading and writing. This means that all other
teachers, including art, music, P.E., history and computer science will not be under the
same scrutiny as their colleagues and this is disparate treatment.

While standardized tests can be a productive means to track student progress, they should
never be used to determine a student’s intelligence or a teacher’s competency. A test
cannot measure the virtues of imagination, ingenuity or work ethic. It is imperative that we
keep these assessments in perspective, lest we somehow overlook the next great Thomas
Edison.

Bill Young spent more than a decade working in the public school system as a school
safety officer. During the past twenty years, he has taught classes, developed curriculum,
lectured within universities and consulted throughout the U.S. on school safety issues and
school disciplinary matters.

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