I'm not very impressed either by the article's arguments. He seems to be promoting the idea that these tests cause teachers to teach more of what is tested. Things that aren't tested get taught less, and students need to know those things, too.

How is it that most K-12 industry spokespeople think this is a persuasive argument for eliminating testing? Why is it that only "outsiders" think this might be a better argument for expanding the testing? ("Outsiders" are what unionized or gov't organizations, which don't have a concept of customer, call customers.)

At our local (Silicon Valley) public elementary school, I got to see firsthand how the system worked with standardized testing. (I remember it prior to NCLB, because I come from a family of teachers.) Most elementary teachers are native English-speaking women who like kids, have better English skills than kids, mostly by virtue of several extra decades of daily use rather than formal study, did not like math very much when they were in school and had hoped to avoid "mathy" jobs, and for all these reasons plus decent money, security, and some prestige, had chosen elementary ed.

Most teachers at this level are very free regarding what and how they teach. Their are limits, of course, but the big one these days is the mandated standardized tests. How they tend to deal with this is fascinating and disturbing.

Most teachers (that I've seen in our school) teach very little math for most of the year. We had a wonderful exception last year, but some teachers will go days without teaching any math at all. They prefer reading stories, drawing pictures, talking about American Indians and Martin Luther King, drawing pictures, writing stories using "invented spelling" (you're literally not allowed to ask how to spell a word, because it's about creativity, not "correctness"), and illustrating stories with pictures.

Math homework might be to cut pictures out of magazines showing people using numbers. This is to "promote engagement" and "encourage critical thinking." In an era when everyone has a calculator in his pocket, math is about concepts, not correctness, we're told by people who never liked math and whose government-mandated teaching credential requires exactly zero classes on math concepts.

But then the standardized test day approaches and there is a period of two weeks or so when kids actually have to learn to get correct answers or the teacher's job may be in jeopardy. So, what do they do? Cut up even more magazines faster? Think even more critically?

No, they drop their progressive theory like yesterday's newspaper and revert to actual direct instruction. For nearly an hour a day (depending on age), they stop dividing into groups to "engage in mathematical discourse" and "discover" math for themselves and are taught how to solve math problems correctly---at least those math problems likely to show up on the test. Apparently, when their job depends on their students' ability to actually do math instead of discuss it, their whole approach to teaching changes.

But only until the test passes. Then, whew!, thank goodness that awful test is over and we can stop obsessing over measurable proficiency and get back to cutting pictures out of magazines, inventing spellings, drawing pictures, and talking about critical thinking.

The article's implication is that, if only we could stop objectively measuring student proficiency, teachers would increase student proficiency. That's not how it works in businesses that have to please customers or die. That's not what I see in school, comparing how and what they teach before, during, and after standardized test season.

So, what is his proof? That students today know less than they used to know? I say that's more likely due to being taught less than being evaluated more. But he says that they know less of what isn't tested, because the teachers have to work so hard to prepare students for the things that are tested. I say that if testing causes them to take proficiency in things that are tested that much more seriously, we should take advantage of it to evolve better tests covering even more things.