Resolved: On balance, standardized testing is beneficial to K-12 education in the United States

Support for the Pro position of this resolution if bountiful and defensible in a properly framed debate. At the outset, the Pro debater needs to recognize there is significant negative press against standardized testing arising from a multitude of factors, many of which are unrelated to the question of whether or not standardized testing is beneficial to student education. These negative factors poison the well and spread the perception that because some elements related to standardized testing are undesirable, then standardized testing in general must be undesirable. This, of course, is a logical fallacy; a kind of fallacy of composition in which one draws conclusions about a whole based upon an examination of smaller portions. Standardized testing is a tool and like any tool can be designed for specific purposes. We shall examine those purposes and their effect on education and we will scratch the surface of an abundance of studies which measure the effect of testing on students. Much of the research extends back several decades and is still cited in research journals today. A Basic Definition To clarify the position, I will provide a definition for standardized tests which describes their nature and their purpose. JCCHD (undated): A Standardized test is a test that is given in a consistent or "standard" manner. Standardized tests are designed to have consistent questions, administration procedures, and scoring procedures. When a standardized test is administrated, is it done so according to certain rules and specifications so that testing conditions are the same for all test takers. Standardized tests come in many forms, such as standardized interviews, questionnaires, or directly administered intelligence tests. The main benefit of standardized tests is they are typically more reliable and valid than non-standardized measures. They often provide some type of "standard score" which can help interpret how far a child"s score ranges from the average. Based upon this definition we can surmise that the test may be administered by a school in accordance with some over-arching direction or purpose and may be required by local administration or government or at the state level. A key principle is the test must be administered and assessed in a standardized and consistent way aligned to the purpose it is designed to serve. Key Advantages Standardized tests offer advantages to school system administrators which are not possible with in-class testing and assessments designed and graded by teachers. The key advantages are objectivity, comparability, and accountability (Churchill 2015). Depending on the type of test one teacher's evaluation of a student's test may be different than another teacher's evaluation of the same student's test results. This variability can result from a lack of objectivity in the design or assessment of the test and lead to different impressions of a student's level of achievement. Standardized tests are designed to greatly reduce subjective grading. Often, standardized tests are assessed by computers rather than humans. Not only does this reduce costs by eliminating the need to pay graders, it enforces objective standards. The second major advantage is seen when a local school board needs to determine the overall level of achievement of, say sixth-graders in several different schools within their jurisdiction, Standardized tests ensure that all of the sixth-grade students will be evaluated on a common, objective standard. This allows a fair evaluation of sixth-grade achievement and helps determine which schools or classes may be in need of improvement. Objectivity and comparability are both necessary to realize the advantages linked to accountability. School system administrators use the tests as a feedback mechanism for the schools and classes to alter curriculum or resources in such a way they can benefit student achievement. Accountability requires the individual schools and instructors demonstrate forward progress in achieving the goals of the school administration. From Feedback to Blowback I do want to spend a little time discussing the downside of standardized tests because I believe a thorough evaluation and acknowledgement of problems increases the Pro ethos. Accountability is pushed by governments intent on maximizing their educational dollars. Obviously, an administration concerned with high costs will tend to view standardized tests as a mechanism for achieving goals for the least cost. First, the cost of testing is relatively cheap and secondly standardized tests can potentially isolate problems in individual schools, classrooms, or teachers putting increased pressure on those systems and individuals. Moreover, politicians can use accountability to enhance their own political statuses. Merrow (2001): But the fundamental problem is that many schools and school districts use standardized test results more for accountability than understanding or diagnosis. I'm not blaming educators for this situation, because they're only following orders. H. D. Hoover of the University of Iowa defends testing but agrees we've gone overboard. He places the blame squarely on politicians. "They want quick fixes, and they like tests because they're cheap. They mandate external tests because to the public it looks like they're doing something about education when all they're doing is actually a very inexpensive 'quick fix.'" When accountability increases pressure on school districts in a heavy-handed way, students are often re-categorized for failure to demonstrate achievement above a particular "cut-line" which alarms and often angers parents. Teachers are pressured to increase the performance of students and some teachers are viewed as professionally incompetent. All of this pressure results in negative attitudes about standardized testing and leads to abuses which have resulted in overly narrowed curriculum which focus entirely on the tests, and in extreme cases, cheating. All of these negative impressions ripple through communities and result in the perception standardized tests are the problem. The link between the home and the administration is the classroom and the teachers themselves play a significant role in the success or failure of the testing programs. Brown & Hattie (2012): The belief systems of teachers are a significant factor in whether standardized tests can be educationally useful. Clearly, pre-existing beliefs that standardized tests are irrelevant can and will influence how teachers respond to the possibility of using tests educationally. But there are other options for understanding the purpose and nature of assessment; assessment can evaluate schools, it can evaluate or certify students, and it can be for improvement (Brown, 2008). For example, in the development of the asTTle standardized tests system, it was found that teachers who endorsed the conception of assessment related to "assessment is powerful for improving teaching" had higher interpretation scores on a test about the meaning of the asTTle test score reports (r = .34). In contrast, teachers who endorsed more strongly the conception of assessment as a means of evaluating or holding schools accountable had the lowest interpretation scores (r = -.21) (Hattie et al. 2006).Thus, successful use of standardized tests requires believing that they can contribute to improved teaching and student learning for the individuals in a teacher"s class. This belief leads to more accurate interpretation to the educationally useful information communicated in standardized test reports.[290] We can see tests as simple measuring systems which serve as an important tool in guiding the educational development of students. Ultimately it is how those tools are used and people's attitudes about how the tools are used which guides perception of whether or not the tests are beneficial. No doubt it guides the perception of the PF debate judge as well.