The prevailing wind that the only thing worse than having standardized tests is not having them
I ran into an Ed Week editorial this morning (click here ) which again exemplifies how few people actually know what a standardized test is, what it was designed to do, and as a result what the limits are regarding possible interpretations. The editorial starts this way: "What's worse than annual standardized testing? Not having it at all." In response I posted the following: What would truly be helpful is for folks to understand what a standardized test is, what it was designed to do, and what the limits are to the interpretive range of a test score. That understanding would quash most of the argument here. A standardized test is designed to offer a rank ordering of students that can then be used for comparative purposes. In order to provide a consistent rank ordering the design of the test requires that we sacrifice any ability to answer questions regarding why a student lands at a particular score. Thus a standardized test score, by design, is incapable of offe...