The human brain is the most multifaceted biological puzzle in the known universe; consequently, it is enormously difficult to simultaneously assess the knowledge, skills, and content understanding of large quantities of individuals with standardized testing alone. Regardless, for the past decade and a half, American schools have been pursuing the same unrealistic target: proficiency in reading and math by all pupils, regardless of conditions and circumstances that can interfere with academic success.

This goal reduces education facilities to a type of learning factory in which every child is seen as identical raw material to be converted into the same final product at the end of the academic assembly line. Testing and accountability have become nearly synonymous terms although their definitions bear no meaningful similarity; anyone who’s worked with children can attest to the gross distinctions among them, mainly that they master skills at different rates and learn in scores of different ways. They could perform better if they are given adequate amounts of time.

Considering that five natural siblings can differ immensely in intellect, personality, disposition, emotional fortitude, athleticism, and interests — although they can all share the same genetic background and be reared contemporaneously in the same home by the same parents — it seems unreasonable to expect 35 random children to respond to new information in an identical fashion at exactly the same rate, much less to hold educators “accountable” for the differences in individual achievements.

Today, progressive schools are gravitating toward differentiated learning and assessment, where realistic distinctions among individuals play a larger role in the teaching-learning assessment sequence. All brains are different: even those of monozygotic twins who are biologically distinct. Therefore, neurodiversity should dictate assessment diversity.

The Standardized Testing Model

IQ tests popularized during World War II were deemed to be useful in quickly identifying the type of work that would be most appropriate for military recruits based on their results. In the postwar era, the testing epidemic spread to education, where standardized tests became the assessment norm. Just as the Army intelligence tests were designed to quickly spread recruits out along an ability continuum, standardized tests were introduced to identify where students fell in the broad range of academic knowledge and skills.

Early on, it was noticed that Army recruits from more prosperous regions of the country typically outperformed others from poorer and more rural regions of the U.S., and poor African-American recruits from the segregated South performed at lower levels than middle-class blacks from Northern states. Although today the racial-achievement gap is closing, a 40 percent increase has been observed between high- and low-income students in the past 50 years.

Low-income families are bombarded daily with countless physical and psychological risk factors, such as chaotic living environments, ongoing financial pressures, familial instability, and social isolation, in which case, succeeding on a standardized test may simply not be a priority.

It is considerably easier to blame the schools rather than acknowledge the well-known economic factors negatively impacting child development: Generational economic inequality is a subject that is consciously avoided in political, social, and academic circles. In the 1970s, researchers at UC Berkeley uncovered that the environment in which a mammal develops can determine neurogenesis, neuronal growth, and synaptogenesis. In an enriched environment, neuronal cells grew in almost every respect.

Professor Sean Reardon of Stanford University stated at a Washington, D.C., symposium that schools are hardly the primary cause of the problem, “If they were, the test-score gap would widen as students progress through school, but this does not happen. The test-score gap between eighth-grade students from high- and low-income families is no larger than the school-readiness gap among kindergartners. The roots of widening educational inequality appear to lie in early childhood, not in schools.” What’s more, standardized testing is claimed to be objective, but this is a misleading point. Answers are indicated by a No. 2 pencil mark in the “bubble” of an answer sheet, which machines score as correct or incorrect. So, “objective” standardized testing refers to the scanner searching for an object in the correct location of the answer sheet.

If Child A and Child B both receive a score of six correct items out of 10, we assume that they are at the same level of proficiency (60 percent). However, Child A might only complete six test questions, but all are accompanied by correct responses. With more time, Child A might answer all 10 questions correctly. Child B might know only three correct answers but, by guessing, get three more correct (and four more incorrect responses), giving him a total of 60 percent correct which makes the test scores a false metric for students who just need ample time to express their understanding of the content. Sometimes, we make incorrect interpretations concerning student scores.

International Test-Score Comparisons

Critics have pointed to the poor test scores of U.S. students as evidence for the failure of the public school system when compared to those of their international counterparts. The Programme for International Student Assessment — a global assessment conducted every three years by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development — showed that American schools typically fall in the middle of the international range when it comes to math, reading, and science.

In 2010, Dr. Gerald N. Tirozzi, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, rearranged the international test scores into three groups: from countries with a poverty level at 10 percent or less; between 11 and 25 percent; and 26 to 50 percent. By controlling for merely one factor (poverty), he was able to determine that U.S. scores topped all others in each income group. Tirozzi stated, “Once again, we’re reminded that students in poverty require intensive supports to break past a condition that formal schooling alone cannot overcome.”

Equally important is the fact that the United States is among the very few countries that make a concerted effort to educate every child in every state, regardless of ability, disability, family income, or native language. Every American child is guaranteed a classroom seat, and his or her score becomes a factor in our overall achievement statistics.

