The STAR test and No Child Left Behind are ruining education because they
- reduce the amount and quality of teaching
- are expensive
- stress everyone out
- are inaccurate and are becoming more so as student resentment grows
If I’m preaching to the choir, you can skip the rest. If you want to read the reasons in more depth, keep reading.
The STAR test is a standardized test in California that along with No Child Left Behind is ruining education. The idea behind the test was to show which schools were doing a good job and to be able to find and improve schools that were not. Instead of improving schools which were doing a bad job of educating students, it has lowered the level of education for all students in elementary through high school.
How has it lowered the level of education? The test results are used in such punitive ways that teachers feel compelled to teach to the test. They sometimes spend months teaching the materials on the test, and multiple-choice test-taking itself. This is to the detriment of other subject matter, such as creative projects. Since the tests are multiple choice, it encourages teaching that “one right answer” mentality, while taking time away from creative assignments. Teachers teach best when they teach the materials they feel passionately about, but the STAR test makes everyone teach to the test. On top of it all, students have to spend time taking the tests, which go an for days, instead of learning.
Complying with No Child Left Behind was supposed to bring money to schools. Instead, it’s much more expensive to comply with then the amount of money it brings from the federal government. All this testing and administration costs the schools money which could be better spent other ways.
The STAR test is meant to be a test of the schools and teachers. It is not an accurate test, because right off the bat disadvantaged students don’t don’t test as well as advantaged ones. Each student’s performance is influenced by all the teachers he or she had previously, so an individual teacher’s contribution is hard to measure. The punitive ways of using the scores encourage teachers to teach the students who start out with the most advantages and probably have smaller class sizes. The weighting system for students who are mentally disabled or learning English don’t really make sense.
Teachers, administrators, and students have a lot of anxiety because of this test. STAR test are also part of a student’s permanent record and can be used as a basis for course selection or for the Gifted Program. There isn’t much of a Gifted Program anymore because there is no money for it. There is a great joke about No Child Left Behind football analogy. (This is all over the internet, here’s one version.) Sadly, it’s true. Gifted kids are given no help, and are often bored and start to hate school.
The whole assumption of the test is that it is an accurate and objective test in which all the students try their best. After years of taking these tests, many students resent them. They know that for the most part, their performance won’t affect their academic grades. They don’t have any real motivation to try hard. Last year my eighth grader decided he was going to just fill in random bubbles quickly so he could finish early and read his book. He didn’t like his school or teacher all that much and didn’t care if it reflected badly on them. (He probably would have been much happier in a gifted program if there had been one.) I didn’t have many good arguments for why he should try hard and ended up bribing him to do his best. Apparently, many other students also have the same idea of filling in random bubbles to finish the test early.
This year his high school tried to combat apathy by telling the students that their STAR scores would be counted as part of their academic grades. This is problematic because the test could have materials on it that their teachers hadn’t taught them, so it isn’t fair to grade students down for it. Another problem is that the scores don’t come out until the middle of the summer, after the grading period is over. The school said they would adjust the grades after the fact. Then, they said that individual teachers could decide if they wanted to count the STAR tests or not.
This is a huge mess, because using the STAR scores as part of the students grade is a misuse of the test. On the other hand, it’s not fair to judge the school and teachers when the students don’t take the test seriously. A parent can legally request that their child not be tested. Once again, it hurts the school.
The best solution is for the district and state to refuse to do STAR tests and No Child Left Behind (aka No Child Gets Ahead or No Child Left Untested).
