Standardised Testing. 

WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS WITH STANDARDISED TESTING LIKE NAPLAN?

 

Marion Brady, outstanding USA Educator and writer for The Washington Post, once compiled a list of problems with High Stakes Standardised tests that 'should be addressed before such tests are used to determine student life chances'.  Too late! Such tests, operating at a long distance from the successful foundations of school-based learning, play capriciously with our children's future.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-complete-list-of-problems-with-high-stakes-standardized-tests/2011/10/31/gIQA7fNyaM_blog.html?utm_term=.9765b4961d61

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The list, altered slightly for down-under conditions, should be seriously considered by Australian parents before they allow their children to be Naplanised throughout the school lives.   Each comment should be examined seriously and it is proposed, from a professional, ethical and practical point of view, by the most experienced school experts in Australia:   that parents do not allow their children to participate in the lunacy of Standardised Blanket Testing.

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WHY?

Standardised , Blanket, Machine-scored tests....

1. Trivialise learning;

2. Measure only 'low-level' thought processes.

3. Provide minimal to no useful feedback to normal classroom teachers.

4. Lead to neglect of physical conditioning, music, art and many non-verbal ways of learning.

5. Hide problems created by margin-of-error computations in scoring.

6. Give control of curriculum to test manufacturers.

7. Penalise test-takers who think in non-standard ways.

8. Radically limit teacher ability to adapt to learner difference.

9. Encourage use of threats, bribes and other extrinsic motivators.

10. Produce scores  which can be [and sometimes are] manipulated  for political purposes.

11, Assume that the youngsters will need to know what the tests dealt with, in the future.

12. Create unreasonable pressure to cheat.

13. Reduce teacher creativity and the appeal of teaching as a profession.

14.  Are unavoidably biased by social class, ethnic, regional and other social differences.

15. Lessen the concern for and use of continued shared evaluation by teacher and pupil..

16. Have no 'success in life' predictive powers.

17. Are prepared and sanctioned by small-minded testucators for small-minded users.

18. Were introduced and continued by conniving political manipulators with a purely profit motive.

19. Are open to massive scoring errors with life-changing consequences.

20. Are at odds with fair-dinkum Aussie values of fairness, acceptance of challenges, innovation,  creativity, and self-worth.

21. Create negative values in attitudes to foundation subjects and to school itself.

22 Perpetuate the compartmentalisation of knowledge by field.

23. Waste the vast, creative potential of human variability.

24 Unduly reward mere ability to retrieve secondhand information from memory.

25. Subtract school time from valuable instructional time.

26. Lend themselves to "gaming" - using tricks to improve the success-rate of guessing.

27. Make time - a parameter largely unrelated to ability - a factor in scoring.

28. Create test fatigue, aversion to learning and to testing of any kind..   

29. Are unconnected to Learnacy in any way. 

30. Simply don't work. All extensive official and detailed reports and all international tests  indicate clearly that standardised testing has "not increased student achievement". 

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​And as Albert Einstein noted: "Not everything that matters can be measured, and not everything that can be measured matters."

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NAPLAN testing faces scrutiny as Education Ministers push for changes.

By National Education reporter Natasha Robinson

Posted -  Thu 15 Feb 2018, 5:07am

Some of the nation's education ministers have united to push for changes to the controversial testing system in schools known as NAPLAN.

Key points:

• NSW Education Minister believes NAPLAN has become "major event" in school calendar

• SA minister Susan Close says time to have another look at NAPLAN

• Federal minister indicated he was not open to any significant

changes

 

They believe the testing has strayed from its original purpose of helping teachers improve student learning to become a "major event" in the school calendar.  NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes does not believe NAPLAN is functioning as a simple check of student literacy and numeracy for teachers and schools.  "I think what was designed to be a simple check-up has become a major operation," Mr Stokes said.  "A number of my colleagues in different governments across the nation are keen to review the process to try to make it as simple, as clear, as flexible, and as responsive to the needs of teachers as possible."

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His South Australian counterpart, Susan Close, said: "The whole focus among teachers, among parents, and among students has created an environment of high stress and concern around the test itself."  Ms Close chairs the Education Council, which is made up of all the state ministers and the federal Education Minister. She said NAPLAN was being actively discussed.  "It is absolutely time to have another look at NAPLAN," Ms Close said.  "We've been talking about the need to have a review of NAPLAN, to have a discussion about NAPLAN, particularly in the way in which it's used for reporting on schools and reporting on states."