Teachers who are designing classes that are collaborative and meet the needs of heterogeneous groups of students are doing so, in many cases, without the support of their principals, who still track students on the basis of standardized tests. Even Gregory Anrig, President of Educational Testing Service, believes that testing has been overused and misused. Anrig complains that tests are being used to make decisions that they were never designed to make. Tests often determine the fates of students, teachers, principals, programs, and whole schools, while he believes that they should just be part of a larger picture. In other words, even some of those involved in the design and dissemination of these tests take issue with the power that tests are being given in our schools.
Standardized tests are a vehicle for maintaining andperpetuating the status quo.
When we meet in groups with concerned Chicago Public School teachers and principals, inevitably their frustration about testing rises to the surface. Teachers and principals understand the folly of attempting to teach in innovative and creative ways while still being evaluated on tests designed to measure kids' ability to remember and regurgitate isolated facts. If we want reform in Chicago schools to be more than merely restructuring the system of governance, if we want reform to include the renewal of curriculum, and if we really want to transform our childrens' classrooms, we must take a critical look at the role that these tests play in our educational system and find other measures that are congruent with the kind of instruction that we want for our children. There are better options for assessing education. New qualitative measures, such as performance or authentic assessment, can more directly and accurately measure what kids know and can do.