We Must Prepare Students for the Real World — and That Includes Testing

We live in a world permeated by high-stakes, standardized tests. In China, a high score on a university entrance examination is the only route to admission — and students prepare for it relentlessly. In the UK and Australia, a high school exit exam determines whether students will graduate, what universities they can attend, and the degrees they can pursue. Even Finland, favored around the world as a model of progressive education, requires students to pass a rigorous matriculation exam to go on to university.

If you think this reliance on testing is doing profound damage to education, I’m afraid my views may disappoint you. While I passionately believe in the importance of a holistic education — our schools integrate chess, blocks, sports, arts, ballroom dancing, and board games into the curriculum — I also believe that well-designed standardized tests measure real learning. But forget my opinion: American universities, the envy of the world, make standardized test scores one of the greatest factors in admissions for both their undergraduate and graduate programs. No law requires that they do so; they choose to because, in their experience, these tests are a strong measure of students’ academic accomplishments.

In recent years, a vocal group of parents has pushed back against standardized testing in American schools, arguing that tests put too much pressure on children and don’t measure learning. The upshot is a testing opt-out movement and pervasive criticism against schools — particularly high-performing charter schools — that take pains to prepare students for these tests.

There’s real hypocrisy here, because there is ample evidence that the same parents who rail against standardized tests care a lot about their children’s performance — and are willing to pay to improve it. Rockville Centre in Long Island, for example, has the highest opt-out rate in New York state — it is also home to 10 tutoring and test prep centers (in a district with only seven public schools). In affluent Scarsdale, there are 14 tutoring centers clustered around 11 public schools. By contrast, in East Harlem there are only two tutoring centers in a district of 32 public schools.

This pattern reflects research indicating a vast disparity in how much affluent parents spend on enrichment and tutoring for their children compared to low-income families. The disparity is contributing to a rich-poor achievement gap that has quadrupled in the past 50 years, and is a significant reason why we at Success Academy take preparing for standardized tests seriously.

When it comes to poorly conceived test preparation and badly designed tests, I agree with critics who claim that test preparation leads to rote learning — preparation for simplistic tests that focuses on test-taking skills like “best guesses” is a waste of time. But the Common Core-aligned tests are not poorly designed — they are complex and rigorous. Consider these math problems, for example, that have appeared on prior tests:

If x is an integer, what is the greatest possible value of the expression 1-X2?

A boy has as many sisters as brothers but his sister has twice as many brothers as sisters. How many boys and girls are there in the family?

These questions draw on core mathematical concepts but also meaningfully assess a student’s ability to apply creative, mathematical reasoning. Test-taking skills will not help students answer such questions — they must understand relevant mathematical strategies and why and how to apply them. Bubbling in the answer doesn’t change the fact that they must have a strong command of math to arrive at it.

At Success, we don’t believe that a progressive, whole-child education is at odds with strong preparation for state tests. For this reason, while we spend ample time on things like project-based learning, field studies, and creative writing, we also dedicate a unit before the state tests to focus instruction more intensively on the kind of writing, thinking, and problem-solving that our students will encounter on these assessments. In fact, we have found our students make particularly great strides in learning during this period, because they are so focused on mastery.

Ultimately, however, the only way to academically prepare children to excel on these and other well-designed tests is through an excellent year-round curriculum and effective instruction. Students must read copiously, participate in rich analytical discussions about literature, and learn to express powerful ideas through writing. They must grapple daily with complex math problems that build their conceptual understanding and computational mastery. And they must be taught by teachers who are experts in their school’s curriculum and are intellectually prepared them to deliver it in a way that maximizes learning and engagement.

If you believe that standardized tests are destroying public education and preventing children from real learning, then go ahead and take action to create the test-free world you envision for the future: petition Congress; write to universities; publish op-ed pieces. In the meantime, it is our responsibility to prepare students to succeed in the world as it exists now, which includes standardized tests. Anything else is a disservice.