Are high-stakes tests stressing students, teachers?

Most students have always felt stress when it comes to taking tests. Trying to remember why the Battle of Hastings was the decisive move of the Norman Conquest in 1066, that beryllium is the fourth position on the periodic table, keeping straight the rules of grammar when what is spoken and what is written often differ, and dreading any exam in geometry have always been a trial when it came to making it through traditional education.

Today stress over examinations has increased for students and teachers. Not because of content so much as because of the expectations of standardized testing carries with it – including determination of what schools will receive government funding and what schools will be more likely to face cuts that could result in eliminated jobs for adults and a lost education for children.

Most arguments both for and against standardized testing in public schools are anecdotal. Detailed, scientific research tracking the results of how education has been approached during the past 30 years, and the results on students that made their way through the system is very limited.

Some independent researchers, including University of Michigan psychology professor Scott Paris suggest that standardized testing does create stress on students to a level greater in the 21st century – beginning at a younger age while mounting through the 12th grade – than it did for those that graduated from high school as recently as the 1970s.

Paris, in a report by the Poist Science Corp. said, “Standardized tests provoke considerable anxiety among students that seems to increase with their age and experience.” He also implied that standardized testing could be behind many behavior problems and might be linked to a boost in the prescription of Ritalin and Prozac among children during the past 20 years.

Standardized testing began in an organized fashion in the 1950s when the U.S. Military was grading uniform proficiencies among draftees and recruits. The practice evolved and was carried over into the public setting. By the 1960s school children were being tested to see what states were lagging behind when it came to learning.

The most commonly remembered standardized tests for adults are the SAT and the ACT. It is told that some people actually studied for those.

Since then the number of standardized tests exploded with one measuring one set of factors and another determining other educational demands.

In the 1980s, Americans began to realize that our educational system was lagging behind those of other developed nations. The answer for government and some educational experts was to provide more testing.

Many of the tests were designed to level the playing field among students of different socio-economic backgrounds. Others were developed to challenge the most gifted. Some were intended to grade teachers on their performance.

Supporters of standardized testing contend that it gives educators guidance to determine what to teach and when. That it offers parents a report of how their children are doing compared to the rest of their classmates. It provides across the board comparisons of students. And, according to supporters, it offers a standard upon which improvements might be measured.

Opponents to standardized testing contend that it places constant stress on students to make the grade without being taught how to study. It restricts educators to teaching the test rather than pertinent material for learning. It places greater pressure on school districts to constantly increase scores no matter how well they might have done previously just to be able to keep a flow of state and federal funding, and it restricts teachers from meeting the specific and sometimes unique learning needs of their students.

Two Louisiana teachers, who did not give permission to be named, said in conversation that some of the standardized testing rewards schools based on a scale of improvement. The problem with this approach, they contend, is that while students with a greater range of needed improvement might demonstrate that they have advanced with testing, those that normally carry high grades might not require or even demonstrate the required range of improvement because they are already testing at the top of the scale. The result is that smart kids are being punished by not making the grade according to standardized standards.

The biggest complaint by many educators is that standardized testing robs teachers of an opportunity to truly teach and that is “why Johnny can’t read.”

“It’s extremely stressful to the students and to the teachers,” said Terrebonne Parish School District Superintendent Philip Martin. “It is a very significant problem that we are driven by standardized test results. Teachers know that. So they are constantly doing day in and day out what they can to increase student achievement. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I suppose it depends on how you look at it. Yes, our curriculum is very much driven by student achievement and that is measured by results on standardized tests.”

South Terrebonne High School counselor Christina Falgout said that she has seen more confusion than stress among students and teachers when it comes to standardized testing.

“Our teachers have to constantly be changing their curriculum to fit … different tests that are being given,” Falgot said. “The state is also constantly changing requirements. For kids it is sometimes more confusing than stressful because they are not sure what they have to take to meet the requirements [and] prepare for those tests.”

“We don’t have any control over it,” Martin said. “Those are the rules you have to play by or get out of the game. Well, we don’t have another game so we have to play by those rules.”