Yet, continued concentration on standards, tests and accountability hardly benefits students, the economy or the nation. Based on past ventures, predictable consequences will occur. Instructional time will be increasingly allocated to test preparation. Political pressure on policymakers will lead to easier tests or to the lowering of the cutoff passing score to reduce the number of students who fail to receive a diploma or repeat grades. Test makers then re-norm their tests to make them harder, and policymakers choose different tests.
Test scores dip.
Teachers are blamed, and the cycle repeats itself. Ethnic and racial gaps in academic achievement persist. Because these tests are the tools that policymakers depend on to hold teachers, administrators and students responsible for their performance, there should be, at a minimum, convincing evidence supporting linkage between tests, future academic success and workplace performance. Very little exists. Consider the standardized tests that elementary and secondary-school students take repeatedly as they move toward graduation.