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Standardized tests' limitations make ISTEP's cost too high

by Sheri Conover Sharlow

Libertarian Writers' Bureau

I'm looking for a nice beach house on the Isle of Palms on the South Carolina coast. I'll easily have $2 million to spend once I rewrite the ISTEP tests.

Now that Republicans are running the Statehouse, they're ready to move the ISTEP tests to spring. That makes more sense than the teachers-union-driven law that put the tests in the fall, removing teachers' liability for failing students.

It will cost $12 million to $17 million and take three years to adapt the ISTEP for spring, said Mary Tiede Wilhelmus, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Education, in an Associated Press story. This is just to develop the test; administering it surely will cost millions more.

'Pick me! Pick me!"

I'd be thrilled to rewrite the tests for the pittance of $5 million. It'd take a few weeks. And I'd administer the test within that budget.

Actually, I'd cheat. I'd spend a few bucks per student to administer an already developed test, such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, then pocket about $2 million for my beach house.

My first choice is the Iowa Test because it is reportedly one of the toughest standardized tests. Many tests have been dumbed down to mask the failed curricula created by education faddists and demanded by legislators who feel compelled to fix things.

Government types see political problems, so they fix things by enacting political solutions. This leads to exploitation by those who offer political solutions (such as overpriced test writers) and those who use loopholes to their advantage (such as schools and parents misusing learning-disabled designations). These solutions don't address the real problems, but they do create new ones.

Having been a student, a substitute teacher and cynic, I understand why teachers are leery of relying exclusively on standardized tests to gauge their effectiveness.

An unfair principal could reward favored teachers by stacking their classes with students who test well and punish others by putting poor-testing students in their classes. Some excellent teachers prefer to take tough cases. Would they still do so if their jobs depended upon scores?

Some learning-disabled kids are quite bright; they just process information differently. Will they be abandoned to wasteland classes where they won't hurt the school's score? And how many children who are not learning disabled will be labeled that way if their vain parents can finagle extra test-taking time?

Similarly, gifted programs are dying because schools are penalized when kids fail but receive few rewards when students excel. Students at all levels deserve some individualized instruction, not just those who can make or break a school's score.

Teachers are trying to raise scores while they juggle burdensome mandates. I remember a math teacher grumbling in the teacher's lounge because nonacademic programs swallowed up two weeks of instruction time for his last-period class. Those kids would never catch up.

One trend is to cancel recess to gain instruction time. This will fail. Young kids need to run around outdoors and learn to handle unstructured time with people and without video games. Let's keep recess for elementary kids and give it to middle- and high-school students. This will refresh older students for the harder curriculum they'll need to compete as adults in the global economy.

Despite the shortcomings of standardized testing, it does measure students' progress against other students and schools against other schools. If done well, standardized testing forces teachers to cover material that children need to become competent adults.

Still, such tests would be more useful if parents could use scores to find the best school for their children, much as many car buyers use Consumers Reports and Automobile magazines to find the right vehicle -- lots of legroom vs. midlife-crisis chasing speed. The only kids who now can move freely are those who attend schools with consistently dreadful scores.

Tests alone won't solve our schools' problems. Parents must be able to match their children to suitable schools. Legislators must stop mandating curriculum. We must reward good teachers and principals and get rid of those who are incompetent.

At best, tests are just a snapshot. It doesn't make sense to drop millions into ISTEP when less expensive alternatives will serve the same limited function.

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