STANDARDIZED TESTING

remains an esoteric and vague subject, little understood and better left to the professionals . . . but, absolutely necessary. By contrast, the professionals do not agree on either the necessity or the value of standardized testing.

The issue of standardized testing is almost inseparable from the discussion of standards, at least in the United States.

When Americans refer to "standards", we intend to identify

exactly what it is that we expect students to learn in school:

How many languages should they learn and at what level of

fluency? Which math concepts should they master and at which

grade levels? We aspire to high standards and to even higher

student test scores. We are extremely distraught when reports

indicate that today's students are less competent than the

students of a generation ago, or, even worse, have test scores

lower than our international neighbors.

"Standards" has become a politicallyloaded word. It has been suggested that we replace it with the word "essentials: "essentials...would define a common academic core which all students would be required to master" (Cunningham, 1999, p. 1). Cunningham (1999) continues, "we already know what excellence is just look at certain private and public schools that are successful in preparing a large proport

. . .
perfect measures of what individual students can or cannot do or of everything students learn...scores on a particular test may vary from day to day" (Bagin & Rudner, 1999, p. 2). Yet, as a result of test scores, children have been labeled "unready" or "slow learners" and experts report that a "high proportion of the children in special education and lowerlevel tracks come from lower socioeconomic populations, including large numbers of minorities," who presumably tested poorly (Perrone, 1991, p. 2). It has become common practice to use test results to "determine whether a child should advance from one grade to another" (Perrone, 1991, p. 2). Regardless of the fact that not all students are "good testtakers", or that illness may have influenced their performance on the day of the exams, or that their overall work throughout the school year may be strong enough to warrant promotion, some students have been held back purely on the merit of their test scores. Early testing means early tracking, which often "becomes the basis for . . . ongoing tracking" (Perrone, 1991, p. 2.) Test results of kindergarten students have been used to identify those needing special assistance, or to route some into gifted and talen
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
DarlingHammond Lieberman, California Connecticut, Nelson Spint, Sanders Horn, Bagin Rudner, United Americans, Governors' Conference, Ivy League, Teachers AFT, College Board, test scores, standardized testing, perrone 1991, cunningham 1999, perrone 1991 2, standardized tests, 1991 2, chronicle education, ascher 1990, darlinghammond lieberman, lieberman 1992, darlinghammond lieberman 1992, perrone 1991 1, lieberman 1992 2, 1990 pp 14,
Approximate Word count = 3079
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)