However, I would like to raise some cautionary thoughts. First, most of us know how little achievement tests really tell us about what children are doing. We know, for example, that the mismatch of curriculum to tests, skewed test sampling and even the mathematics tend to distort the information. American students often don t perform as well on international comparisons as other students simply because our curriculum is different. It is difficult to do well on an algebra exam if you haven t taken algebra.
Broader samples tend to lower results.
Because larger samples lower results, we often get criticized for drops in scores when those drops are meaningless. The fact that we now test nearly half of our high school students on the SAT as compared with a much smaller percentage in previous years has led to great alarm as the average has dropped. The fact that America has opened college admission to a much broader portion of our population should be a point of celebration, not criticism, because students who at one time would never have taken the test are now taking it in order to further their education. In fact, despite testing greater percentages of students, and despite a decline in the conditions affecting their performance that are outside of the schools control, we have seen some improvements in test scores in recent years. I am not suggesting that we should not feel good about what we are doing, or that we shouldn t try to set the critics straight.