Standarized Testing and Public Education

In recent decades, the United States has shifted its approach to schooling to incorporate neoliberal ideals. Traditionally, schools were regulated and funded by local governments. More recently, federal and state governments devoted programming and funding to efforts to reduce educational inequality caused by differences across communities such as income and tax revenue. However, rather than responding to the true needs of communities, large-scale government involvement has rendered education just another asset in the United States’ domestic agenda to compete in an increasingly globalized world market. This increased competition on a global scale, among other factors, has resulted in the adoption of neoliberal policies that advocate for schools that emphasize skills necessary for future participation in the workforce, and contribute meaningfully to America’s economy. Some examples of neoliberal reform include the increased number of charter schools, the hiring of corporate CEOs to head larger urban school systems, and the growth of the now multimillion dollar standardized testing industry.

While many supporters of neoliberal education reform claim that competition in the free market improves quality of education, in reality it has resulted in the proliferation of corrupt practices within America’s education system. One of the most controversial reforms to accompany neoliberal education policy is the introduction of standardized testing. Legislation such as President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which was first implemented in 2002, spearheaded the movement to use standardized testing as the primary measure of a school’s quality by requiring that public schools test their students each year. Although some states have taken it upon themselves to develop their assessments independently, the task of manufacturing and scoring the exams is often passed off to third parties, usually large for-profit companies. Today, the testing industry is an extremely profitable business that continues to grow as private and government interests become increasingly intertwined. In 2014, NCLB allocated $378 million dollars to state assessments in addition to the regular funds granted through the annual Department of Education budget. Funds from the budget are siphoned off into contracts between the Federal Government and four major companies that dominate 96 percent of the standardized testing industry: Harcourt Educational Measurement, CTB McGraw-Hill, Riverside Publishing, and NCS Pearson. Competition for these contracts is steep, and for good reason. Standardized testing is a lucrative business that is on the rise: today the market is valued at anywhere between $400 to $700 million dollars, as compared with a mere $7 million dollars in 1955.

These assessments were originally implemented to objectively track and compare American schools’ progress, but in reality they are counterproductive to creating an environment that is conducive to learning, exploration, and intellectual curiosity. While it is true that standardized testing undermines the very meritocratic structure it seeks to strengthen, the most profound, and often less discussed, consequence of federally mandated assessments are their stratifying effects across lines of race and socioeconomic status in America.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are significant achievement gaps between white students and students of color, as well as between upper- and middleclass students and those who live in poverty. David Berliner, an established educational psychologist, claims that poverty, which is tightly bound to race and ethnicity, “restricts the expression of genetic talent at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale.” Most children living in poverty in the United States lack access to basic medical care, safe housing, and adequate nutrition, major obstacles that severely impede their ability to maintain strong attendance, succeed in a classroom setting, or perform well on standardized tests.

Achievement gaps are rampant in America across both school subjects and grade levels. For example, in 2007 all 46 states that provided test data to the National Center for Educational Statistics revealed an achievement gap in the fourth grade mathematics exam. Nationally, white students scored an average of 248 points and black students scored an average of 222 points on the assessment designed to test their knowledge of topics covered over the course of the school year. Similar data exists for almost all minority groups across age and geographical region. These gaps do not appear to be narrowing anytime soon: only 15 out of the 46 states that demonstrated achievement gaps in mathematics have seen a statistically significant decrease in the discrepancy between white and black students’ scores since 1992.

NCLB emphasizes school accountability as one of the main objectives for increasing standardized testing, and assesses public schools on their ability to educate their students by the percentage of students who pass the exam. This is a dangerous policy, as statistics suggest that schools that are diverse both racially and socioeconomically will have discrepancies in performance on standardized tests that correlate with race and class. Accountability measures provide powerful incentives for schools to find ways to rid themselves of lower performing students, often students of color or low-income students, or take alternative measures to avoid failing marks. The stakes are also high for schools that serve entirely minority or low-income populations because they stand an even higher chance of termination due to unsatisfactory standardized test results.

The implementation of state-mandated testing in Texas is an example of how standardized testing may lead to the implementation of superficial changes that present the illusion of academic success. One way that schools may improve test scores without making any changes to the school’s structure, staff, or curriculum is by prohibiting students with the lowest test scores to advance onto the next grade, which is directly correlated with increased dropout rates. As of 1990, tenth graders in Texas are required to take the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), a reform that is incorrectly credited with decreasing dropout rates and increasing overall achievement. This practice only creates the illusion that schools are responding to the educational needs of its students by demonstrating higher test scores, when in fact they are simply relying on the same tactics at the expense of lower-income and minority students.

In his study of education reform measures in Texas, Walter Haney, a professor of education at Boston College, found that “only 50 percent of minority students in Texas have been progressing from grade 9 to high school graduation since initiation of the TAAS testing program,” and there has been a spike in high school dropout rates across Texas. Some states offer cash awards for high ratings, and Texas is one of them. Introducing financial incentives for high test scores, a fundamentally neoliberal ideal, prompts schools to function like parties in the free market as they seek out ways to increase their share of capital being doled out by the government and compete amongst one another to receive the highest possible ratings. Meanwhile, students who are struggling to grasp the material are simply pushed aside. Rather than incentivizing schools to make changes that truly help students learn to the best of their ability, the neoliberal approach to education shifts the emphasis from learning and growth to a competition for increased funding. Although the check may come from the government, it is ultimately the students who pay the price of “achieving excellence.”

Conversely, the government punishes schools that fail to perform by transferring students to other districts or providing them with alternative educational opportunities. In practice, these changes, which have deep roots in the neoliberal model, do little to improve educational opportunities of students. For example, as David Hursh, a professor of education at the University of Rochester writes, “adding the option of transferring to another school…intensifies market competition between schools.” In the neoliberal model of education, schools and their students are analogous to companies and their products. Similarly to how its product determines a company’s success in the market, students determine their school’s success in the larger education system. Failing schools are either offered government bailouts, swept away in the current of the market, or swallowed up by larger, more established institutions. Finally, the threat of school privatization by third parties (for-profit companies) is the most blatant nod to neoliberal ideals. As a result, students are commoditized and made subject to the demands of the market, which offers little protection for their educational rights.

The negative consequences of poor test scores are far-reaching for those living in “failing” districts. Many of the accountability measures the federal government imposes on struggling schools do more harm than good. The neoliberal model of education does not properly account for larger socioeconomic factors that may prevent reforms from being fully realized. Instead, it fosters an environment in which corrupt practices that disenfranchise students are not only made possible, but rewarded. Ironically, despite the fact that one of neoliberalism’s main objectives is to grow the economy and implement structures that work to everyone’s benefit, neoliberal education reforms do just the opposite. Rather than promoting social and economic prosperity, policies such as standardized testing further disenfranchise already alienated populations through harmful accountability measures that decrease opportunities to learn. As a result of failing neoliberal educational policy, students with the potential to contribute to society in a meaningful, mutually beneficial way continue to slip through the cracks of our education system.