Standardized tests can't measure initiative, creativity, imagination, conceptual thinking, curiosity, effort, irony, judgment, commitment, nuance, good will, ethical reflection, or a host of other valuable dispositions and attributes. What they can measure and count are isolated skills, specific facts and function, content knowledge, the least interesting and least significant aspects of learning.
-- Bill Ayers
>>4
a comparable metric when looking at how the level of education changes as time progresses
Because we can really tell that when every state is taking different tests that undergo major changes every few years, amirite?
setting defined and reachable goals for the education system
The culture of teaching from a test is the worst thing to happen to public education EVER. Standardized tests are, perhaps, a useful tool, but their overuse is resulting in generations of mentally crippled people.
For example: how were you taught critical thinking skills and the basics of logic? I wasn't. Such things weren't on any of the tests. Everything labeled "critical thinking" in all my old curriculae turned out to just be word problems and reading comprehension. I turned out somewhat sane simply because I grew up relying on my mistrust of other people to not blindly listen to anything they said. I learned about the Burden of Proof on my own, long after high school. I didn't even have a real understanding of the Scientific Method until college. Instead, my public education was focused on cramming useless factoids into my skull, the VAST majority of which has long since been forgotten.
Can you imagine what an entire generation of people who were never taught how to think rationally would look like? Oh wait, all you have to do is look at modern America.