Commentary: Eliminating Standardized Testing Had Shockingly Bad Results

Test Taking

For years, liberals have scoffed at the idea that standardized testing is the best predictor of academic success. The National Education Association, for instance, claims standardized tests are “both inequitable and ineffective at gauging what students know.” Activists’ campaign against standardized testing — and their assertions that such tests discriminate against “underrepresented minority students” — culminated in the decisions by more than 1,000 colleges to drop their standardized testing requirements.

This week, cold, hard data showed just how foolish those decisions were. The University of Texas at Austin released the academic performance data for students who submitted standardized scores versus those who did not submit such scores. The result is unambiguous: Students who did not submit standardized tests performed drastically worse than students who did submit their scores. The students who did not submit ACT or SAT scores finished the fall 2023 semester with a grade point average 0.86 grade points lower than students who did. This demonstrates an average difference of almost an entire letter grade. Had the University of Texas utilized all applicants’ standardized scores, it very well might have decided against admitting many of those who did not provide their scores. Students who did not provide scores had a median SAT of 1160, markedly lower than that of the students who did provide their scores: 1420. The University of Texas would have been correct in deciding against admitting those students with lower scores given how much better students with a higher average SAT performed academically.

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State Senator Mark Pody Discusses ‘Real,’ ‘Genuine’ Concerns Homeschool Families Have with School Choice Voucher Program

Home School

Tennessee State Senator Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) addressed two concerns he has heard from families that choose to homeschool their children regarding Governor Bill Lee’s universal school choice program, which would give $7,000 education savings account scholarships to 20,000 qualifying students in the first year of its inception.

“[Homeschoolers] have real concerns and they’re genuine,” Pody said on Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show. “These objections are real because there’s something that is an underlying statement: If government funds it, government runs it. So if you take government money, no matter where you are or what you are, if you don’t think there’s a string attached somewhere, you’re not looking close enough.”

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Another Elite University Will Reinstate Standardized Testing for Admission

Brown University

Brown University will reinstate a policy requiring standardized testing as part of the admissions process, according to a Tuesday news release.

First year applicants for next year’s admissions cycle will be required to submit standardized test scores, like the SAT or ACT, in their applications, according to the university news release. Brown suspended its testing policy in the summer of 2020 citing “unprecedented obstacles to testing” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Yale University Reinstitutes Standardized Testing in Admissions

Yale University

Another elite university in the U.S. has backtracked on its decision to eliminate standardized testing in admissions after years of following the practice.

Yale University announced Thursday that it would be instituting a “flexible testing policy,” which allows students to submit several different test scores for admissions, including ACT, SAT, International Baccalaureate, and Advanced Placement scores, according to a Yale website. The university said that after performing extensive research, they found that “test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s future.”

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TCAP Retakes Reveal Most Tennessee Third Graders Are Not Proficient in Language Arts

The Tennessee Department of Education released district-level data on Tuesday from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) retake opportunity, one of the pathways to promotion for third-grade students who failed to score proficient on the original administration of the assessment.

Statewide, roughly 44,000 students, which translates to 60 percent of the state’s third-graders who took the initial assessment, did not score proficient on the spring TCAP English Language Arts assessment. By law, those students are eligible for a retake exam. According to the TDOE, over 25,000 students took advantage of the opportunity.

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Release of Tennessee Third-Grade Literacy Scores Produces Mixed Response

In the aftermath of the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) test data release for third-graders by the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE), legislators are pleased and encouraged, while parents are angry and confused.

On Friday, TDOE released scores to districts across the state. Due to the late distribution time, there was a variance in when parents received their child’s score. Some districts shared results with families on Friday night, while others in the larger urban districts didn’t receive results until Monday afternoon.

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Tennessee to Require Tipton County Schools to Take TCAP Tests

Despite having two schools recently destroyed by tornados, Tipton County students will still be required to participate in the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP). Crestview Elementary and Crestview Middle School were the two elementary schools destroyed during the tornados. 

Tipton County, a rural conservative county that borders the Mississippi River, had appealed directly to Governor Lee for relief from the burden of testing this year, due to the county still dealing with the after facts of two tornadoes that struck on March 31. According to a report from television station WREG, “The tornadoes damaged 540 structures, causing more than $37 million in damages.”

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Tennessee Universities Reinstate Standardized Testing Requirement

The University of Tennessee System (UT) announced recently that it has ended its test-optional admissions policy. 

The new policy requires first-year applicants to submit an ACT or SAT score in order to be considered for the Fall 2023 semester.

Melissa Tindell, executive director of communications at the UT system, told Campus Reform that standardized test scores are part of a “holistic” admissions process. 

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Stanford Extends Test-Optional Policy for Third Straight Year

Close up of a pencil on top of a multiple choice exam paper

Stanford University has made its admissions process test-optional for the third year in a row.

Following the arrival of COVID-19 in the United States, Stanford previously suspended standardized testing requirements for the 2020-21 undergraduate admissions cycle. Stanford School of Medicine ceased requiring the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), and physics graduate applicants did not have to submit scores for the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) or the GRE subject test in physics.

Now, according to the university’s admissions site: “For both the current 2021-22 admission cycle and the following 2022-23 cycle,Stanford will not require ACT or SAT scores for first-year or transfer applicants. 

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Gov. DeSantis to End Florida’s Yearly Standardized Testing

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced yesterday his intentions to end Florida’s yearly standardized testing requirements for public schools, known as the Florida Standards Assessment (FSA). The replacement for the FSA would be known as the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) and will be a progress monitoring system.

DeSantis made the announcement along with Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran with the hopes of reducing testing in the classrooms by up tot 75 percent, with the hopes of teachers being able to get back to traditional instruction and not concerning themselves with standardized test prep.

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‘Dramatic Declines’ in Michigan Student Test Scores After Gretchen Whitmer-Induced ‘Disrupted Learning’

Close up of a pencil on top of a multiple choice exam paper

Test scores of Michigan students fell dramatically after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) responded to the coronavirus pandemic by banning in-person learning for much of last school year.

Whitmer sided with union bosses in keeping schools closed for much of 2020, but then recommending reopening in 2021, only to suggest they go virtual again after spring break, according to ABC 13. Test results show the reversals and upheaval affected student performance:

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Belmont University Will Continue ‘Test Optional’ Admissions Criteria

Belmont University announced that it would continue its test-optional admissions policy for the 2021-2022 admissions. Students will no longer be required to submit ACT or SAT scores for either admissions or scholarship eligibility. This, in addition to the continued acceptance of pass/fail grades.

Their admissions team determined that the COVID-19 pandemic presented significant challenges for students applying to the university. The university issued the update earlier this week, shortly after announcing that its new president would be Dr. Gregory L. Jones. Belmont Associate Provost and Dean of Enrollment Service Dr. Chris Gage explained that they’d decided to shift their priority focus onto student qualities and backgrounds rather than traditional testing standards for admissions.

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Several Ohio Groups Oppose Bill to Freeze School Assessments During Pandemic

As Ohio schools, parents, students and teachers continue to navigate through COVID-19 restrictions, adjustments and challenges, the public needs more information about how schools are performing, not less, according to a state business group.

Ohio Excels, a business coalition focused on educational outcomes for state students, sent its president, Lisa Gray, to testify before the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday, asking that Ohio not waive assessments for the next two years, which is called for by Senate Bill 358.

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Commentary: Can Americans ‘Handle the Truth’ About Individual Achievement Differences?

by George Leef   In the 1992 movie A Few Good Men, there is a courtroom scene where the prosecuting attorney (played by Tom Cruise) tells the defendant Marine officer Nathan Jessup (played by Jack Nicholson) that he wants the truth. To that, Jessup shouts back, “You can’t handle the truth.” What brings that to mind is the recent revelation that the College Board (CB) has begun calculating an “adversity score” for each student who takes its aptitude test, the SAT. Apparently, the people running the CB don’t believe that we can handle the truth that individual students vary in their academic abilities, and therefore their actual SAT scores must be adjusted (“put in context”) to supposedly reflect the circumstances of the test taker. Schools will receive adversity scores that boost the actual scores of students to the degree that the CB thinks they have faced adversity in their lives. How well students are actually prepared for academic work will now be hidden behind an egalitarian gauze that is supposed to make things fairer. Strangely, the news about this change in the SAT was not trumpeted by the CB itself but rather was revealed in the Wall Street Journal. Author…

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DeVos Tackles Top-Down Federal Education Regulations

by Natalia Castro   Betsy DeVos understands that education is best handled when handled locally. Time after time, we have seen big government policies make it more difficult for teachers to teach their students, including the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act and the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act. Under the Trump Administration, the tide is turning. DeVos is using legal loopholes to turn the law against itself in order to give schools more latitude to teach their students based on what they know works rather than what the federal government wants to work. On DeVos’ “Rethink Schools” tour, she highlights the need for local, individualized curriculum rather than federal intervention. Now, Congress needs to match her energy and remove federal education regulations. On DeVos’ “Rethink Schools” tour, she highlighted the need for local, individualized curriculum rather than federal intervention. At the beginning of the year, the Department of Education (DoE) provided parents and schools with a guide to help them understand how to navigate a child’s education under ESSA, legislation that like its No Child Left Behind predecessor requires states to develop challenging academic standards. The critical component of DeVos’ 2018 ESSA guide was not teaching parents and students…

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Tennessee Teachers Burdened by Heavy Workload, Survey Results Show

Teacher and Kids

Tennessee teachers are worn down by their workload and don’t think their school districts are doing enough to address the problem, results of an October survey by Professional Educators of Tennessee (ProEd) show. The Nashville-based organization which represents teachers surveyed 536 educators from more than 81 districts. This was the second year for the annual comprehensive survey. “I wasn’t surprised at all that teacher workload was the number one issue,” said Bethany Bowman, director of professional development for ProEd and a former teacher. Bowman said bureaucratic state and district mandates make a teacher’s job exhausting. “There’s so much more to it than just instructing a class,” she said. The survey asked teachers to rate around 20 issues as being very critical, critical, somewhat critical or not critical. After workload, the top 10 most critical issues included salary, literacy, parental engagement, instructional time, planning time, lack of respect, benefits, school safety and administrator quality. The survey also asked educators to rate how they felt their district or school addressed the issues. Only 29 percent of educators rated their districts above average with respect to workload, only 31 percent rated their districts above average for addressing salary issues, and only 37 percent…

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EXCLUSIVE Interview: Joe Carr Standing Firm on Conservative Record in 14th District State Senate Special Election

MURFREESBORO, Tennessee — Joe Carr held forth on a range of issues Thursday at Slick Pig BBQ on East Main, a favorite hangout where he feels right at home. In an interview with The Tennessee Star, the conservative State Senate candidate energetically answered questions on immigration, health care and education. Carr announced Monday that he will run for the State Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Jim Tracy (R-Shelbyville), who late last week was appointed as state director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Tracy’s resignation means there will be a special election within the next few months. Murfreesboro businessman Shane Reeves also announced this week that he will run for the seat as a Republican. Carr served in the Tennessee State House of Representatives from 2008 to 2014, lost the 2014 Republican U.S. Senate primary to Lamar Alexander, and also lost the 2016 Republican 6th Congressional District primary to Rep. Diane Black (R-TN-06). He lives on his family farm in Lascassas and is semi-retired after having founded and sold two engineering firms. In recent years, he has become known for his T-Bones and Politics fundraisers featuring big-name guest speakers. Viewed as a solid conservative by his admirers, Carr is against the…

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Beth Harwell Calls for State Legislative Hearings on TNReady Testing Problems

House Speaker Beth Harwell (R-Nashville) is calling for state legislative hearings on problems with TNReady scoring. “We have made great strides over the last several years in education, and we must be diligent in ensuring we continue these gains,” Harwell said on Facebook Tuesday. “We know that accountability has been a large part of this improvement. However, the news that nearly 10,000 TNReady tests were scored incorrectly has resulted in educators, parents, and legislators seeking answers. In addition, the amount of testing has also raised questions.” Hawell, who is running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, has asked the House Government Operations Committee to hold the hearings. The scoring issue is the latest in a string of glitches over the past several years with standardized testing in Tennessee public schools. Testing has also come under scrutiny for the amount of time it takes away from instruction, the way student scores are linked to teacher evaluations and for what is viewed as acquiescence to a national large-scale testing apparatus involving for-profit companies selling testing products and services. At the end of this past school year, testing vendor Questar was slow in returning test scores for report cards. Problems with its scanning program are now…

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Shelby County Schools Teacher Questions Value of Standardized Testing Blitz

Woodson Maher wonders why more people don’t stop to ask how the Greatest Generation turned out OK without having been subjected to the battery of standardized tests that take up so much time in public schools today. Maher, who teaches marketing at Cordova High School in Shelby County Schools, isn’t convinced all of this is necessary. Testing is so time-consuming that attention is drawn away from delivering basic instruction, he said in an interview with The Tennessee Star. “For whatever reason, it has reprioritized the curriculum,” Maher said. Born and raised in Memphis, Maher is a product of Memphis public schools. After graduating from Lambuth University in Jackson, he began a career in marketing and advertising, spending 10 years in Nashville. An idealist long attracted to serving the community, he decided to see if he could make a difference in the classroom. He entered a teacher education program at the University of Memphis, beginning a journey in the world of education that he has found to be less than ideal. He has written a book about his observations called Margin of Error: How Public Schools Have Failed with Standardized Testing, Teacher Certification, and Vocational Education. At the end of August, he…

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Metro Nashville School Board Member Mocks Gov. Haslam’s Letter To Students About Testing

Tennessee Star

  Metro Nashville school board member Will Pinkston said this week that Gov. Haslam’s letter to students to motivate them for standardized testing “might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.” Pinkston took to Twitter Monday to make his comments about the April 10 letter. This might be the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Headline: @BillHaslam Pressures Kids to Do Well on Standardized Tests. #number2pencil pic.twitter.com/2TmF8FQYcj — Will Pinkston (@WillPinkston) April 18, 2017   In attempting to strike a friendly and encouraging tone, Haslam wrote “you may feel excited or maybe a little nervous” about standardized testing and somewhat oddly compared it to a yearly visit to the doctor’s office for a check-up. Far from feeling excited about standardized testing, students and teachers alike in recent years have said testing takes up too much time and that tests are poorly written and too often address topics not covered in the curriculum, causing students to despair. Schools across the state are engaged in TNReady testing this month, trying to leave behind the problems of last year when procedural glitches forced the state Department of Education to cancel its contract with the testing vendor and find a new one for this year. Haslam’s…

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Low Test Scores, High Graduation Rates: Will Tennessee’s Retooled Testing Program Help Show What’s Really Happening With Student Performance?

Schools in Tennessee are getting ready for spring testing starting mid-April, hoping to leave behind the debacle of last year, when glitches in carrying out revamped tests caused headaches across the state. Hitting reset again this year potentially creates more hurdles in getting an accurate read on student achievement at a time when the data that is available shows low student performance, even as state officials are touting high graduation rates. The Tennessee Department of Education terminated its contract with Measurement Inc. last year after technical problems ground an initial round of online testing in February to a halt and the company then missed deadlines to deliver paper and pencil tests for spring. This year, the state has a contract with a new vendor, Questar, for the second year of TNReady testing that is part of the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP), begun in 1988. Testing was canceled last spring for students in grades 3-8 because of the mishaps, but high school students were able to take the full assessment. Many students scored below expectations, but state officials say the scores reflect changes in standards and types of test questions and new achievement levels. “Just as we expected proficiency to dip in…

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