Member-only story
Standardized Tests Cannot Measure Skill
because they are designed to be boring
In being boring, standardized tests do not clearly measure what they intend to. It’s a design flaw, and while not fatal to everyone, it is fatal to enough students that it means the tests don’t accomplish their job with nearly the accuracy we need. In fact, for many students, standardized tests actually create the impression of ignorance, because in being boring, the test drives students away from actually demonstrating what they know.
Too often, we don’t really listen to students when they complain. And the single most common complaint I’ve heard over 20 years in education is that Standardized Tests are boring.
It may be that the term ‘boring’ is simply the only word to come easily to the minds of sixteen year olds. We often latch on to the easiest answer when faced with complicated obstacles. There are lots of good reasons to dislike tests, but students have little experience beyond school, and to them the tests are simply parts of their lives they must accept. They lack both the depth of experience to understand how standardized exams affect their personal lives and the professional experience to understand how the tests are supposed to exist in the larger world. Sitting in the middle of that experience, uncertain of its purpose, slaved to readings and…
