To Test or Not to Test: That is Not the Question:

We begin this editorial with a few caveats: We believe in and support the continuing evolution of better education for all Americans; we believe in the efficacy of sound, carefully planned and administered assessment programs; we believe in the preparation of teachers with solid academic knowledge, respect for all humans, and thorough methodological skills. Having said this, we also believe that some current trends and emphases being promoted in the nation and several states are potentially dangerous and tragic. The second of the National Education Goals asserted that by 2000, the high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90%. Some of us wondered at the time about the alleged meaninglessness of high school graduation when, as the popular bromide went, Half of them [graduates] can't read (substitute add, divide, think, spell) anyway, so what good is a diploma? It doesn't mean anything. Yet, when one considers all the other things that were to happen by 2000, according to the Goals 2000, such as students demonstrating competency in all subjects known to the Western world, drug-free schools producing students first in the world in mathematics and science, and so on, maybe the goal made sense. Right. Many states--including Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin--are either already administering or developing high stakes tests that appear to guarantee that a sizable percentage of students will fail; some prognosticators are predicting a higher secondary school dropout rate in the near future. Teachers in some areas of the country are indicating that they have neither the necessary curricular materials nor appropriate preparation to accompany the emerging standards. Much of what we read about what some states are proposing to help teachers implement the New Age of Assessment is more indoctrination than thoughtful development practices. A contradiction is clear: Policies and practices that promote failure are unlikely to enhance the success probability of more than 90% of students graduating from high school in 2000, 2 years from this coming June. We contend that establishing standards, enacting testing programs, and further sorting children by ability without support is worse than folly; it is cruelty. Teacher education annually helps to prepare thousands of teachers. Countless sources, including many articles in the Journal of Teacher Education, contend that teachers have the responsibility to help all children to become effective learners and citizens. In foundations of education courses and seminars, teacher educators help prospective teachers raise questions of social justice, racial inequality, and national purpose. Most teacher education programs place student teachers in several schools during their preparation programs so new teachers will have some insight into the vast differences in resources accorded to schools. We believe that, unabated, present trends will continue the insidious development of schools where only those likely to succeed will succeed. One trend is the seemingly ceaseless testing of students in all grades as a way to promote reform. In a letter, Tom Hooper, an English teacher at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, Sudbury, Massachusetts, nicely states the problem with many reform efforts resting on testing: The test requirements do away with all that we have been striving for. Who believes that tests of short-term memory have anything to do with education? These reforms leave out everything that is important: the individual growth of individual minds, the acknowledgment of the feminine as well as the masculine, the enlargement of cultural thought to include everyone, not just the history of Greece and England. Where are the people who should be leading the fight against the destruction of our schools? Where the deans of the schools of education? Where are the college presidents? Where are the superintendents and principals? …