About high-stakes standardized tests

Doherty (2002) asserts that probably there is no other development in education during the past decade that has generated more controversy than the spread of high-stakes testing to every state in the nation. There are divided opinions and teachers, parents, state boards, politicians, etc have their own  say in the matter. Why? because high-stakes testing is used to make important decisions like promotion and graduation, teacher incentives, funds and business decisions, etc.
Gareys and Grant (2008) list four negative (unintended) consequences of high-stakes standardized tests:

• lack of validity leads to incomplete and inaccurate inferences about student learning
• the curriculum is narrowed
• lack of test reliability leads to undependable inferences about student learning
• some people resort to cheating

Similarly, Popham (2005) states that both national standardized-tests and state-developed standard-based test have flaws and when they are used the product is:

• curricular reductionism, because teachers eliminate the content that is not going to be tested;
• excessive drilling, which takes all the fun of learning away, and
• modeled dishonesty, when teacher resort to unethical practices to raise students scores.

My question is, if high-stakes standardized tests have so many problems why do we insist on using them?

Gareis, C. & Grant, L. (2008). Teacher-made assessment. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education

Popham, J. (2005). Standardized testing fails the exam. Retrieved from: http://www.edutopia.org/f-for-assessment

What is assessment about

I think we all agree that assessment is an important part of education. But sometimes we don't know why, or maybe we think in the wrong reasons. I like how Gareis and Grant (2008) defined it:

"assessment --whether informal or formal-- is the means by which a teacher knows what students are or are not learning" (p.3).

Simple, right? We need to know whether our students have learned or not, and most important what they have learned! 
Gareis and Grant (2008) continue explaining that assessment (to what degree students have learned) is the third component of students learning, the other two being curriculum (what we teach) and instruction (how we teach). So if we don't articulate the three aspects, it is like non dependable two-legged stool. Moreover, they state, if assessment is absent "teaching becomes all about teachers and their decisions and not about students and their needs or their learning" (p.5).


Look at the following common misconceptions about assessment are (Gareis & Grant, 2008):

• assessment is to give grades
• tests are a necessary evil
• assessment doesn't have anything to do with teaching and learning
• standardized assessments only test lower-level thinking
• assessing students is easy: just ask some questions

Have you ever felt this way about assessment? Have you ever heard a teacher say something similar about assessment and evaluation? What can we do to change the way we understand and envision assessment?