What Standardized Tests Can Never Measure

Here are links to a couple of articles, one discouraging and one cautiously hopeful, that caught my notice. Both call attention to the misguided reliance on test scores as the primary measure of teaching and learning.

This New York Times article tells the story of how standardized testing pressures and forced competition for federal funding robbed children of a principal the likes of which all parents dream their children will have.

This Wall Street Journal article describes one school's effort to teach whole children despite standardized testing pressure. An excerpt:

MAPLEWOOD, N.J.-Twenty children gathered on a carpet at the Seth Boyden Elementary School here, taking turns building a mountain of wooden blocks.

With each block they placed, children had to name an item they wanted, such as an iPod or bicycle. As the tower grew shakier, the teacher described it as a lesson in "greed and gratitude," a tangible reinforcement of a fairy tale read earlier in the day on the dangers of wanting too much.

I can't think of any multiple choice question that could truly measure such a sophisticated combination of deep reading comprehension and social and emotional learning. How lucky those second graders are, to attend a school which has for a decade "stuck to a teaching system based on more visceral indicators: how a child treats peers, and aptitude in the school's garden, musical and athletic areas." I can only hope that more and more schools will find creative ways to resist policies they know are damaging to children.