Should NCLB Focus on Standardized Testing

Should No Child Left Behind Focus on Standardized Testing?

Rose Wagner
Educational Psychology and Measurement
Montana State University College of Technology
April 10, 2011

Should NCLB Focus on Standardized Testing

You hear so much about No Child Left Behind or NCLB you have to wonder what all the
controversy is all about. At the center of NCLB is this idea that teachers should be held
accountable for the academic growth of their students, every last one of them. It sounds simple
and straight forward right? Wrong. The problem starts with how to measure the academic growth
of students. It was determined that standardized testing would become the best method to
determine the success or failure of teaching staff, administration, and schools (Ravich, 2010).
This is where I believe the downward spiral begins. First, NCLB leaves the curriculum up to
each state and its standardized test up to the states as well (Ravich, 2010). Standardized test by
definition means you are getting the same test under the same conditions (Harris, Smith, &
Harris, 2011). In my opinion if each state has their own curriculum, benchmarks and
standardized tests how can we really get an accurate measurement of improvement, and equality
in American schools? As for holding your teachers accountable it seems to me what might be
success in one state may just as easily be failure in another. I can agree with the federal
government not wanting to determine the curriculum of each state, but they should have required
the same benchmarks and tests for each state. I believe in order to accurately know what children
are being left behind there must be one set of standardized tests and the focus should be on
individual growth and not one set of benchmarks.
Another area of concern is that the test focuses on three subjects reading, math, and
science, with just reading and math being used for determination of a schools success or failure
on federal score cards (Ravich, 2010). With all the pressure to see growth every year in only
these areas it is easy to see why other areas of study are only being touched on, with the majority
of focus on reading and math skills. Not to say that they are not important, but we are cheating
our students out of a well rounded education. Areas of decreased focus are social studies,

Should NCLB Focus on Standardized Testing

science, art and music, physical education, or a combination of these subjects (Harris, Smith, &
Harris, 2011). I think we would all agree that many professions will suffer if our high schools are
pumping out students not prepared for college courses in these areas. Other areas of concern to
me are students with different areas of expertise or intelligences. Are these students being given
a chance to grow? Or are they being stifled by the narrowed curriculum? Reality is that as long
as schools are being held accountable for these tests and scores are to improve every year
teachers are going to teach with the majority of their focus on preparing for these tests (Harris,
Smith, & Harris, 2011). Another area of concern for me is that not all teachers are being
evaluated by these tests. The tests are only given to grades three through eight and once in high
school in areas of reading and math (Ravich, 2010). So if you dont teach one of these grades or
subjects are you exempt from accountability?
Some schools went so far as to reduce lunch time and eliminate recess in the name of
NCLB because it wasnt educational (Harris, Smith, & Harris, 2011). I believe this to be a
discouraging practice children need free time and breaks not to mention physical activity. This is
not only physically detrimental but psychologically detrimental (Gardner, 2009). I believe recess
teaches children social skills and sportsmanship and these skills can be as important in being
successful as many things learned in a classroom.
Holding schools solely accountable for the success of each student seems to undermine
some overwhelming evidence that socioeconomic status, culture, ethnicity, bilingualism, and
home life play heavy roles in a students success or failure (Santock, 2009). While teachers can
work with families to overcome some of these hurdles, I do not believe teachers can overcome
these hurdles on their own. One of the biggest road blocks seems to be the fact that these schools
do not have the funding to pay for resources to help bring up these test scores and address these

Should NCLB Focus on Standardized Testing

issues (Santock, 2009). Schools can only do so much; many stresses put on children in low
socioeconomic status cannot be controlled by the school districts. Children in low income homes
are more likely to face stresses such as family turmoil, live in overcrowded homes, and be
exposed to violence than middle income children (Santock, 2009). Other studies show that
children who come from low income homes are more likely to enter school with language
deficits which directly relates to reading deficits. While I think these issues need to be addressed
by the schools and teachers, I do not think that they should be held solely responsible for low test
scores, and again they should focus on individual growth in students.
People under high stakes to perform are more likely to cheat or engage in unfair practices
(Harris, Smith, & Harris, 2011). Students and teachers find ways of cheating the system. Some
teachers have been caught correcting the test before letting students fill in the answers sheets,
others have obtained copies of the test in advance and practice it with students before the real
test, some have pointed out mistakes to students during the test (Harris, Smith, & Harris, 2011).
Still schools have found ways of making scores improve at the expense of other students, by
identifying students that are borderline and focusing solely on them to improve their scores,
while students above the benchmark and well below the benchmark are neglected (Harris, Smith,
& Harris, 2011). Other schools have been caught counseling low achieving students into seeking
alternative education to show an improvement in their test scores (Harris, Smith, & Harris,
2011). These practices sound despicable, but when schools are faced with unrealistic,
unattainable goals they act in ways they would not normally, and set poor examples for students.
Some students feel pressured to follow less than ideal testing practices because of the
time constraints on most standardized tests. In order to make standardized tests easier to measure
by widening the score spread they time sections of the test (Harris, Smith, & Harris, 2011). So

Should NCLB Focus on Standardized Testing

students have found ways to get higher scores on these tests by going through and spending more
time on the easy questions making sure they get the majority right and spending less time on the
difficult questions by eliminating obvious wrong answers and guessing between what is left
(Harris, Smith, & Harris, 2011).
So with all this pressure to perform and improve on these tests do they even do what they
are designed to do, give every student an equal opportunity for an education? Many believe they
are not good indicators of a students quality of education (Harris, Smith, & Harris, 2011).
Studies have proven that students who score high on standardized tests tend to score high on
other standardized tests such as SATs and ACTs, but neither college entrance exams nor high
school standardized tests are linked to the prediction of future success (Harris, Smith, & Harris,
2011). The relationship between scoring relatively the same on one standardized test as on
another standardized test can be explained in their design. They are designed and tested on
students before they are released to make sure that the answers fall in the fifty percent range
(Harris, Smith, & Harris, 2011). That means around fifty percent of the students will get it right
and fifty percent will get it wrong. So the students who get questions right on one test will be the
same students to answer questions right on other test (Harris, Smith, & Harris, 2011). Which
brings me to my next concern who designs these tests?
The people who design these tests are called psychometricians and the field of study is
psychometrics (Herszenhorn, 2006). Not surprisingly psychometrics is a growing field while
there used to be little demand for such areas of expertise, NCLB has created a niche
(Herszenhorn, 2006). Most psychometricians are psychologists but do not have to be, their job is
to design the standardized tests and determine what inference can be determined from their
results (Harris, Smith, & Harris, 2011). They have the difficult task on how to measure learning

Should NCLB Focus on Standardized Testing

(Herszenhorn, 2006). Here is the problem because of NCLB this field took off too fast and
created a shortage of qualified psychometricians, and created an even bigger problem in the
public sector because they are unable to pay the competitive salaries of the private sector
(Herszenhorn, 2006). I think this problem could have been avoided if there had been one set of
standardized tests for all the states.
In conclusion I feel that the current measures for accountability in our public schools
have jeopardized the quality of education. There are no standards for education as a nation. The
standards being used at state levels are subject to much criticism from the narrow focus to the
inexperienced under paid creators of the test. I feel that standardized tests dictate what is taught
and that teachers are forced to focus most of their instruction time on preparing for these tests. I
feel every child has a right to a decent education, but that children are individuals who cannot
always be lumped with their peers. There are special circumstances that cannot be measured by
standardized tests. Individual growth may be what is best for the child and more important than
state benchmarks being met.

Works Cited
Gardner, A. (2009, January 26). Recess Makes for Better Students. Retrieved April 9, 2011, from U.S.
News: health.usnews.com
Harris, P., Smith, B. M., & Harris, J. (2011). The Myths of Standardized Tests. Maryland: Rowman and
Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Herszenhorn, D. M. (2006, May 5). New York Times. Retrieved April 9, 2011, from www.nytimes.com
Ravich, D. (2010). The Death and Life of the Great American School System. New York: Basic Books.
Santock, J. W. (2009). Educational Psychology. New York: Mcgraw-Hill.

Should NCLB Focus on Standardized Testing