We all dread tests like the SAT or ACT in high school—a nerve-wracking roller coaster that, unfortunately, has shaped our education system for over a century. The SAT dates back to 1926, and the ACT was introduced in 1959. By the 1950s, half a million students were taking the SAT annually. Doctors, lawyers, and professors all had to endure these dreaded tests. But we need to ask: what is the purpose of these tests, and do they truly fulfill it?
We’ve been told all our lives that high test scores are our ticket to college. They supposedly tell universities how likely we are to succeed. However, according to a survey connected to the Student Success Act, nearly 70% of educators agree that standardized tests are not an effective measure of intelligence. Students share this sentiment, as reported by the National Education Association. The stress caused by these experiences prevents us from reaching our full potential.
Let’s consider a comparison with athletics. In 2019, Montana State University found that half of their female athletes and one-third of their male athletes experienced a significant decrease in performance in extracurriculars due to anxiety directly linked to standardized testing. This stress we face as students is part of a much larger issue: a profit-driven system that exploits our intelligence for financial gain. Standardized testing companies profit by creating the tests, grading them, and selling remediation materials to schools when students don’t pass. Some argue that standardized testing is a form of corporate welfare, benefiting companies at the expense of American students. The Brown Center on Education Policy estimates that standardized testing regimens cost states $1.7 billion annually—about a quarter of 1% of total K-12 spending in the United States.
On average, states spend $34 per student on assessments, according to the Brookings Institution. Reflecting on our own experiences with standardized tests, we can see that we are just dollar signs to these companies. They don’t care about the fairness or accuracy of their tests, as long as educational institutions rely on them to assess “intelligence.” Some might argue that with all the money they make, these tests must be reliable. However, the Center for Education Evaluation found significant errors in standardized testing. They concluded that reliability issues reduce the power and accuracy of these tests—errors that these companies are aware of. The Center for Education Evaluation found this to be completely inaccurate as they state using the equation (https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/2009013/section_2b.asp) where var(Y) is the total variance in the outcome Y, and var(ε) is the error variance in epsilon. Now their conclusion was “that an experiment with 80 percent power to detect a 0.20 standardized mean difference in true scores is reduced to having the power of 71 percent if the actual reliability of the outcome measure is 0.80”. Yet our intellectual institutions, which teach us to think critically, fail to critically examine this flawed system. Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, both dismissed at times due to disabilities or perceived lack of intelligence, transformed our lives. A 1600 SAT score didn’t create rockets and satellites, nor did they create the iPhone. Therefore we can argue that innovation is more important to our society now, creativity drives growth for a nation and its people.
Sources:
Walker, Tim. “Survey: 70 Percent of Educators Say State Assessments Not Developmentally Appropriate | NEA.” Www.nea.org, 18 Feb. 2016, www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/survey-70-percent-educators-say-state-assessments-not-developmentally-appropriate.
Loveland, Kathryn Kernodle, and J. Gregory Olley. “The Effect of External Reward on Interest and Quality of Task Performance in Children of High and Low Intrinsic Motivation.” Child Development, vol. 50, no. 4, 1979, pp. 1207–10. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1129350. Accessed 23 Sept. 2024.
“Technical Methods Report: Using State Tests in Education Experiments.” Ies.ed.gov, ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/2009013/section_2b.asp.
“A Brief History of the SAT | BestColleges.” Www.bestcolleges.com, www.bestcolleges.com/blog/history-of-sat/#:~:text=While%20the%20SAT%20dates%20back.
DeStefano, Quinn. “Mental Health: Impact on Performance.” Montana State University Athletics, 2021, msubobcats.com/sports/2021/2/24/mental-health-influence-on-performance.aspx.
