New Jersey recently released the test scores for individual schools. Readers can find reports for Franklin Lakes, Oakland and Wyckoff at the bottom of this article, and more detailed analysis at NJ Department of Education.
The role of standardized testing has been a matter of public debate for decades now, and took on greater import with President Bush’s program entitled No Child Left Behind which increased unfunded mandates and tied the anchor of standardized testing to school funding. President Obama continued on this path with Race To The Top, again seeking to raise the stature of standardized testing by attaching millions of dollars to improving test results.
While the money train continues to roll towards standardized tests as the only platform for accountability, forces inside and outside education continue to question the benefits. There is concern that “high-stakes” testing mostly encourage teachers to focus on material covered in the exam so as to show the expected progress. In situations where this occurs, other subject topics and skills must be set aside to allow time for test practice and prep.
click to enlarge for Oakland scores
Other opponents of high-stakes testing believe that it undermines the purpose of education. In 2001, parents in Scarsdale NY organized a boycott of 8th grade testing saying it fostered an environment of a test prep center rather than a school. In Canada, Britain, and Australia, teachers and administrators have advocated boycotting standardized tests for similar reasons.
There are legitimate questions as to how standardized tests are constructed, the questions and answers chosen, and how they are graded. Test inaccuracies are found regularly after the fact, with summer vacations ruined, college choices ruined, and grade placement impacted because of human error and technical failures. The subjectivity of tests that are not multiple choice and must be graded by a human being is recounted in a funny and sad way by Todd Farley author of Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry.
The multi-billion dollar industry behind standardized test scores is supported by government agencies seeking an objective platform upon which they can dispense funds, the media attention of test scores being released provides additional motivation for politicians to respond with words and dollars.
Most often, test results such as these tend to identify gaps in learning between different demographics, either racial or economic. The discrepancy between racial and economic demographics in NJ is a prime example, as a report in The Bergen Record quoted numerous sources saying the test scores indicate the learning gap that has existed for years continues to exist. But the scores have not in the past, nor now, offered a solution.
Administrators and politicians need test scores from all districts in order to objectively identify those schools that are obviously failing; but in so doing they pull resources, time, and effort away from successful schools that feel the pressure to preform well on the standardized test. Many teachers with skin in the game believe that the standardized test is a weak tool in identifying how a student best learns, and their supporters contend that standardized testing dumbs down the educational system rather than raising it up.
This amusing and insightful video by Ken Robinson entertainingly dissects the present educational system which he defines as factory like, and the consequences of it.
China, whose high school students recently outranked the rest of the world on an international standardized test, is very conscious of what Ken Robinson discusses. Many educators, even those from some of the highest scoring schools, believe China’s reliance on standardized testing is in need of major reform. They are aware of their ability to produce students that score high on tests, but appreciate the need for the country to produce students that can be innovative, creative, and think independently in order to progress in the 21st century.
Opponents of standardized testing propose a compromise of periodic testing that gauges a district’s performance, but does not encourage a ‘teach to the test mentality’ as much as annual testing.
FLOW SCHOOL SCORES
Franklin Lakes
Grade Language Math Science
Colonial Road
3 88.3 98.3
4 71.2 87.9 100
5 98.5 96.9
Franklin Avenue Middle
6 84.9 92.4
7 93.9 86
8 97.1 88.9 98.3
High Mountain Road
3 88.6 95.5
4 84.8 96.9 96.9
5 89.4 95.8
Woodside Avenue
3 77.8 88.9
4 87 94.2 98.6
5 80 86.7
Oakland
Language Math Science
Dogwood Hill
3 76.7 87.5
4 82.4 88.2 100
5 88.9 94.4
Heights
3 79.7 86.5
4 74.6 91.1 98.8
5 92 88
Manito
3 92 98.4
4 88.7 90.3 98.4
5 89.2 95.2
6 84.6 83.3
Valley Middle
6 85.9 88.3
7 88.4 84
8 95.7 82.4 94.3
Wyckoff
Language Math Science
Abraham Lincoln
3 85.2 95.1
4 87.5 92.2 100
5 91.1 94.1
Calvin Coolidge
3 86.6 96.2
4 91.5 97.2 100
5 86.5 96
Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle
6 86.3 86.9
7 90.4 84.3
8 93.7 86.5 93.1
George Washington
3 66.7 94.5
4 86.5 94.6 97.3
5 88.6 96.2
Sicomac
3 79.2 91.6
4 85.7 91.4 100
5 75.7 87.1
Ramapo-Indian Hills Regional
Indian Hills 96.2 86.7
Ramapo 97.9 93.4