Years ago when my husband and I chose Montessori for our daughter, Georgia, we did so because of its emphasis on individual, holistic growth and development, placing discovery and joy in learning over rote learning and memorization. We continue in Montessori because we want and demand that she be judged by the content of her character as a whole person, complicated and complex, with unique gifts, talents, and intelligences.
Recently, when Georgia told us she would be taking the ITBS, we were confused. It had been our understanding that Montessori schools do not subscribe to standardized testing. While this is true for the main part, we could also see several reasons why a Montessori school would choose to test.
First, as part a broad-based research supporting Montessori outcomes (generally among public and charter Montessori programs). Second, many private schools, traditional and Montessori, use the scores for marketing. Third, some parents just feel more comfortable having test scores confirm how well their children are doing in school or what is being taught at school. Fourth, to prepare students who are moving into traditional programs in which standardized testing is the norm.
After some research we decided that we would prefer Georgia not be tested. Standardized testing in America has been alternately embraced and rejected as the best way to identify the nation’s most intelligent and deserving youth. Standardized tests arose based on the work of Alfred Binet, a French psychologist. In 1905, Binet developed the IQ test, to identify “slow learners.” The IQ test morphed into an Army career test to pick officer candidates, then into the SAT to find bright young men from middle America to attend Harvard and become the nation’s leaders. At the same time, the College Board was founded to standardize curriculum among the leading private prep schools in New England. As the Educational Testing Service, founded by the SAT developers, gained influence, more universities began requiring the SAT for admittance, cementing standardized testing as the measure of aptitude.
After the first successful mass standardized test was administered, test developers, especially the Educational Testing Service, have worked to convince school districts and the State and Federal Departments of Education that standardized testing is the best way to assess academic aptitude and cognitive ability as well as teacher performance, school quality, and instructional quality. The No Child Left Behind act codified standardized testing, increasing the stakes for schools, teachers, and children under the guise of tougher, higher standards while diminishing the quality, depth, and breadth of meaningful learning; for example, research skills are not measured on standardized tests. Standardized testing does not measure the subjective human qualities that make a difference in the long term, but the stakes have become so high that entire careers can be built or ruined based on test scores.
Standardized testing, regardless of intent, has always had a major flaw: the narrow scope of what it measures. It measures only academic aptitude and nothing of achievement, character, creativity, innovation, determination, drive, or interest. Often questions are skewed to specific transferred knowledge areas and are divisive along racial, gender, and cultural lines.
Standardized testing does not measure the quality of learning, the ability to engage and make connections, and joy in discovery. It does not measure creativity, motivation, discipline, achievement and failure, talent, concentration, independence, confidence, compassion, preferences, or sense of humor. Standardized tests do not measure any of the truly important qualities that help a person be successful and happy in life.
Standardized tests allow traditional educational programs to pigeon hole wonderfully multifaceted human beings into a narrowly defined academic track based on a percentile score. It is an efficient, easy, and quick way to make a judgement without getting to know the person, ignoring the concrete accomplishments of a child; of a child like Georgia who wrote and illustrated two books, ran a specialty bakery for 6 months, started swimming as an infant and currently trains four days a week with Olympic athletes, initiated learning the violin while teaching herself the piano, and devours books then re-reads them multiple times and recalls the most obscure details months later. Standardized test scores ignore that Georgia loves chemistry, Greek mythology, chess, drama, sewing, surfing, and biking. Standardized testing allows institutions to jam square pegs into round holes by the will of those vermicious k’nids*, better known as a standardized test scores.
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Kohn, Alfie. “The Case Against ‘Tougher Standards’.” http://www.alfiekohn.org/standards/rationale.htm
“History of the SAT: A Timeline”. Frontline. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/timeline.html
“Testing Our Schools: A Guide for Parent.” Frontline. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/schools/etc/guide.html
Opting Out/FairTest http://www.fairtest.org/get-involved/opting-out
*shape-shifting aliens capable of devouring humans found in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl and referenced in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, film adaptations of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as the species that wiped out the Oompa-Loompas.
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