Celis 1

Ted Celis
Jim Nyenhuis
Writing 39C
18 May 2015
The Importance and Impotence of Testing
The issue of standardized testing is one of the most controversial subjects in the area of
education. Many have advocated for its continued use to measure the academic status of children
in America and to make important decisions based upon those scores while many more have
criticized its meager attempts and flawed philosophy. In a way, both proponents and opponents
of testing are right in their viewpoints: there should be less testing, but there should also be more
testing. While seeming to be contradictory at first glance, it makes sense when looking at testing
not as one simple entity but instead as a complex category of assessments that could, at the very
least, be split into its two very different components. Assessments of learning and assessments
for learning are two forms of testing that sound similar but serve entirely different purposes. The
problem with education today is the obscured or nonexistent understanding that policy-makers
have of this duality of tests, creating a dangerous imbalance in its implementation that negatively
affects children across the nation.
Testing as it is used today is not only high-stakes, but also highly inefficient. Before,
testing was used as just a means of measuring the learning and performance of students so that
teachers and schools could know how to adjust to their needs, but the No Child Left Behind Act
has transformed testing into a shallow method of executing a harsh system of accountability.
This act has never truly aimed to help schools, just to punish those that dont perform to the
standards; in this aspect it has succeeded too well. The retrospectively oxymoronic No Child Left

Celis 2
Behind Act has closed down several schools on the superficial comparison between measured
performance and national performance, failing to take into account the type of education students
have had previously and how much they have improved relative to their own surrounding region.
There is more to say about this, like dropout rates and teaching to test, but Ill save that for the
next draft. Im not even sure if I should be spending as much time talking about this type of stuff;
its starting to feel more like the HCP.
I was thinking of including Finland somewhere in between the transition between
showing the bad in testing to showing the good in testing. Im going to compare the severe lack
of tests in Finland to the severe overload of tests in South Korea, then say how both are top
performers in the PISA test and thus testing doesnt really matterthe social value of education
and high regard for teachers does. But that kind of detracts from my essay. It kind of invalidates
my whole paper. I could probably find a way to spin in it my direction somehow, though. Maybe
I could say how both actually do use tests, but theyre both formative. Unfortunately, that
wouldnt help my argument two paragraphs down.
I also want to include how an increase of spending hasnt resulted in an increase of
scores, but that seems too unrelated.
Standardization inherently makes tests summative, no matter how much governments try
to make them formative. There are better ways to set a system of accountability. There could be
a smaller scale sampling, which could alleviate the teaching to test syndrome, or a smarter
method of assessing school, which would look at past performance in comparison to present
performance. This way, the true power of tests can be unleashed.

Celis 3
There is a much more efficient way to use tests. It could be used formatively. It has been
shown in studies that testing is an extremely effective method of studying. Students should be
testing for study, not studying for tests.
Standardized testing is a problem. Most people see it as just that, and want to remove all
testing. Its much more than that, though. There are formative tests and summative tests.
Formative tests are helpful. Summative tests are in overabundance. We need to get rid of
summative tests and replace them with more accurate forms of accountability measurement.
Thats all Ive got.

Celis 4
Works Cited
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/science/21memory.html
http://bigthink.com/think-tank/standardized-testing-the-monster-that-ate-american-education
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/walt_gardners_reality_check/2015/02/the_proper_use_of_standa
rdized_tests.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k
http://time.com/3696882/leaving-standardized-testing-behind/
http://www.weareteachers.com/blogs/post/2015/04/01/south-korea-s-school-success