I started writing a reflection for
one of my classes and it turned into an off-topic gripe-fest about standardized
testing only worthy of publishing to blogs dedicated to improving the
world such as this. Enjoy!
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In my graduate studies, my
Introduction to Curriculum class once came to the conclusion that
standardization in schools is not inherently evil. The key question to
ask when confronted with standardization is “standardization of what?”
Are you standardizing the process of education? I.e. pedagogies and
practices. (the means) Or are you standardizing the outcomes? I.e.
evaluation and the desired understandings and skills of students. (the ends)
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Standardizing evaluations and
outcomes can create many problems, as demonstrated by researchers of
standardized testing. Standardized tests like the EQAO and AYP have the
potential to create systems of schooling that---instead of improving students'
overall understanding, skills, and allowing them to realize their full
potential---actually just increase students’ ability to score well on standardized
tests.
Standardized evaluations can
create systemic problems such as polarizing the efficacy of schools. For example, magnet schools that do well at reaching standardized outcomes tend to attract
the best teachers meanwhile schools that are barely surviving under scrutiny
based on standardized test results tend to ward off good teachers. This
relationship creates a positive feedback loop in which the better a school does
on the tests the more it attracts good teachers and funding (which allows the
school to do even better on the tests); the worse a failing school does on the
tests the more it wards off good teachers and suffers reduced budgets (which
cripples the school at the expense of the students who end up doing even
worse on the tests). This exponentially increasing gap between the best
and worst schools is very real in
certain parts of the United States.
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However, standardizing outcomes,
but especially standardization the evaluation of outcomes, can
help organize and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of educative
systems (pending
those educative systems actually use the data collected by standardized
evaluation). Ideally, if you have a sufficient effective measure of
outcomes, it's possible to compare school environments,
demographics, students' socioeconomic statuses, etc. with
schools' capacity to achieve learning outcomes.
Standardizing evaluations of
outcomes provides benchmarks. They can act as a ruler to measure the
relative efficacy of schools and their educative potential. Further,
standardization of evaluations of outcomes encourages teachers to organize
their lessons around learning outcomes. It forces teachers into
backward designing their lessons: identifying outcomes and developing
teaching practices and activities which create the educational experiences necessary to
achieve those outcomes.
Whereas standardizing outcomes can
be justified, standardizing pedagogy and practices almost always creates more
problems than it solves. Every
student learns at different times in different ways. Given the diversity
of learners, there’s a strong justification for differentiated
instruction.
There's something enormously
dehumanizing about homogenizing teaching practices and pedagogies.
It denies the individuality, diversity, exceptionality, and the potential
vitality and vibrancy of the human condition. This goes for students AND
teachers. Teachers are just as diverse as students, and to constrict
teaching practice and philosophy is to try to take the human
beings out of teaching and learning. You kill style, attitude, and
enthusiasm. Teacher-directed teaching can be just as important as
student-directed learning.
All that to say, it's in
everyone's interest that we constantly renegotiate the qualities,
understandings, and skills that belong to an ideal global citizen.
Therefore, it's also in everyone's interest that we constantly renegotiate the
methods and philosophies that should be employed when educating such citizens.
