Why standardized testing doesn’t measure what most parents think it does
Last month, I sat across from Lila and her mom at my 4th grade parent-teacher conference, the glow of my laptop reflecting off the crumpled state test score sheet between us. Lila twisted the eraser off her yellow pencil, a sticker of Orion peeking out from the cover of her sketchbook, while her mom tapped the “Below Basic” label next to “Reading Comprehension” with her nail. “I don’t understand,” she said, and I heard the same thing at least a dozen times every conference season. “She reads three chapter books a week. She reads to her 6-year-old brother every single night before bed. How is she below basic?”
I proctored that test back in March, so I remembered Lila clearly. She got to the third reading passage, the one all about industrial corn farming in central Iowa. Lila grew up in a two-bedroom apartment in inner Portland, and the closest she’s ever been to a corn field is the frozen bag in her family’s grocery cart. I watched her read the first three paragraphs twice, then lean over to whisper, “What’s crop rotation?” Test rules ban any explanation, so I just shook my head. She ended up skipping half the questions on that section, which made up 20% of her total reading score. So a kid who can break down the plot of a 400-page fantasy novel and explain the main character’s motivations to her little brother gets labeled below basic, all because she’s never walked through an Iowa corn field.
Two conferences later, I met Javi and his dad. Javi scored “Advanced” in math, in the top 5% of the entire state. But two weeks before that, we did a class project where everyone planned an end-of-year picnic with a $100 budget. Javi added up the cost of chips, lemonade, and cookies three times, and never once remembered to add the 7% sales tax. When I asked him how he’d figure it out in real life, he shrugged and said “My phone does that.” His test score says he’s a top math student, but he couldn’t pull off the one real-world math task we asked him to do that month.
I started teaching 12 years ago, and I used to look at these scores the same way everyone else did—like they were an objective measure of how much my kids knew. Now I see them for what they are: a test of how well you take this specific test, not how well you read or do math. They measure how familiar you are with the specific contexts the mostly middle-class test writers choose for passages and problems. They measure how well you can sit still for four hours straight when you’re 9 or 10 years old, even if your brain works better when you can move around. They measure how much test prep your school has crammed into math and reading time, cutting out recess and free reading to do practice test after practice test.
That doesn’t mean there’s nothing parents can do to make sense of the scores when they show up in the mail. The first thing I tell parents to do is put the score sheet down for 10 minutes, and write a quick list of what your kid actually does with reading and math every day. Do they choose to read for fun? Can they explain a plot or a fact they learned to you? That’s a far better measure of reading ability than any multiple choice question. Can they count your change at the store? Double a cookie recipe? Figure out how many minutes they have left before screen time ends? That’s a better measure of math skill than any test score. If your list matches the score, that’s one thing. If it doesn’t, the score is wrong, not your kid.
The second thing is to ask questions if the school says your kid needs extra help because of their score. Ask what that extra help actually entails. Is it pulling them out of recess or art to do more multiple choice practice? Or is it working on the specific skills they actually struggle with? A few years ago, a student of mine got a low reading score because he rushed through the whole test to make it to the bathroom on time, and the school wanted to put him in remedial reading. His parents asked to see his class work, saw he was reading two levels above grade, and pushed back. He ended up staying in the regular reading class, and now he’s in high school and writes for the school newspaper.
If you’re concerned about how much time your kid’s school spends prepping for these tests, just ask. Most parents are shocked to hear that elementary schools often spend 3 to 4 hours a week on test prep for months leading up to the exam. That’s 4 hours a week that could be spent reading actual books, doing science experiments, or playing outside, all things that actually help kids build long-term skills.
Lila turned in a 12-page graphic novel she wrote and drew last week, about an astronaut who discovers a new constellation that only kids can see. She read it out loud to the whole class, and everyone clapped when she finished. Her “Below Basic” reading score is still in her official file, and it will follow her through elementary school, used to rank our school, plan interventions, all that system stuff. I don’t think standardized tests are going anywhere anytime soon, and I know they serve a purpose for district planning and funding allocation. But for your kid? They’re just a snapshot taken on one long, stressful Tuesday morning in spring, measuring all sorts of things that don’t actually matter. The real measure of what your kid knows is sitting right in front of you, most days. It’s the book they won’t put down, the argument they’re having about how to build the best Lego castle, the way they count out allowance to save for a new bike. The test just can’t measure that, and it never will.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Why standardized testing doesn’t measure what most parents think it does