After reading the selections from Nancy Foner’s From Ellis Island to JFK, I would like to focus this week’s journal on the topic of standardized testing.
Back at the turn of the century, New York began giving scholarships for strong grades on the already in place Regents exams, which covered a variety of subjects taught in schools. This provided a motive for students to do well, and in my opinion began what would eventually evolve to become the mass produced, money making industry that is standardized testing today.
Many immigrants arrived at New York City without any English speaking skills, or much academic talent at all. As a result, some schools, like CCNY, began offering remedial class, and, as said before, there become scholarships as encouragement to perform well on the Regents examinations. However, as enrollment began to increase, and overcrowding at schools become an issue (especially at the elementary level), schools across the board began to toughen up, in terms of acceptances. Well, how do you measure success? How do you measure how “smart” someone is? Grades at school, and specifically results on Regents exams, became a way to standardize things and measure students at different schools.
This idea of testing has evolved drastically today. Back then, you barely needed a high school diploma to easily land a job, while today, a college degree is a must. But, in order to get into college, students must pass various tests: SATs, ACTs, Regents (in NYS), APs, and more. In New York specifically, the Regents has been thought of as a way to improve schools, by standardizing everything students are learning, and in their minds, “control” the content. Yet, especially in New York City, this is not helping anything. In truth, part of the problem is overcrowding; there are so many students that attention per student, as well as cleanliness of schools, is failing. Additionally, recent budget cuts aren’t helping either; there are less funds, and more students.
But really, this emphasis on testing is not teaching our youth math, science, english, and social studies, but rather how to regurgitate information, how to memorize information, and even how to cheat. I cannot even count how many times in my high school career teachers have told me “I want to teach you this, but we have to stick to what’s on the Regents.” In the science department, teachers even have told us “X is the truth, but answer Y on the Regents.” I truly believe that to solve this issue, in part, quality of teaching must be improved, rather than content being regulated. (Which is being attempted, I might add, by recent implementation of teacher evaluations, but they are controversial because of unfair criteria in some cases).
